B    4    It fl   17D 


REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Class 


JOSIAH 

DWIGHT 

WHITNEY 


LIFE   AND    LETTERS   OF 
JOSIAH    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 


LIFK    AND    LKTTIRS 


TOSJAH      -vVH,,.i  r    WHITN 


(Citf  <%?*.>rt<*i .    {>}•?»*  -r. «*>*•<: 
y.  Z).   Whitney.     '  Aetat.  about  7( 


LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

OF 

JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


BY 


EDWIN    TENNEY   BREWSTER 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


WHITNEY'S  OWL'' 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

(OTbc  fttoerjubc  press 
1909 


HEESJS 


. 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,    BY   EDWIN  TENNEY   BREWSTER 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  November  IQOQ 


PREFACE 

THE  original  idea  of  this  biography  is,  in  part, 
Professor  Whitney's  own.  Some  time  before 
his  death,  he  arranged  with  Professor  William 
H.  Brewer  of  Yale  University,  who  had  been 
his  chief  assistant  on  the  California  Geologi- 
cal Survey,  that  Professor  Brewer  should  at 
some  future  time  write  the  history  of  their 
work  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Of  this  task  Pro- 
fessor Brewer  had  made  a  considerable  be- 
ginning, and  his  ample  notes  are  the  basis  of 
so  much  of  the  present  work  as  deals  with 
the  period  between  1860  and  1874.  On  this 
portion  of  my  work  I  have,  besides,  been 
greatly  aided  by  Mr.  Charles  F.  Hoffmann, 
Chief  Topographer  of  the  California  Survey, 
and  by  the  late  Robert  E.  C.  Stearns  of  Los 
Angeles.  Dr.  Stearns  had  been,  since  the 
early  days  of  the  state,  among  the  most  emi- 
nent men  of  science  in  California;  to  him  I 
owe  the  advantage  of  a  competent  opinion  of 
surveyors  and  survey  from  the  outside. 

The  book  in  its  present  form  is  the  project 
of  Professor  Whitney's  immediate  family,  and 
especially  of  his  only  surviving  sister.  She  in 
particular  has  collected  most  of  the  materials, 


206391 


VI 


PREFACE 


culled  out  the  significant  portions  of  a  volu- 
minous correspondence,  and  supplied  from  her 
own  recollection  a  large  part  of  the  personal 
detail,  especially  of  the  earlier  chapters.  Other 
members  of  the  family  have  contributed  in 
various  ways;  and  Mr.  James  L.  Whitney  has, 
in  addition,  read  the  entire  proof. 

My  hearty  thanks  are  due  also  to  Professors 
Davis  and  Wolff  of  Harvard  University;  to 
Miss  Mary  H.  Rollins,  who  prepared  the  ac- 
companying bibliography;  and  most  of  all, 
and  for  more  services  than  I  can  well  enu- 
merate, to  my  friend  Mr.  Lindsay  Swift. 

Professor  Whitney  himself  merits  abun- 
dantly this  memorial.  He  served  on  the  first 
geological  survey  of  New  Hampshire,  and  be- 
gan his  professional  work  when  New  York 
State  was  geologically  an  unknown  land.  He 
took  part  in  the  scientific  exploration  of  the 
nearer  West,  and  did  more  than  any  other 
man  to  make  known  the  mineral  resources  of 
this  portion  of  North  America.  In  addition, 
he  added  to  the  geological  map  of  the  United 
States  the  whole  of  California  and  much  of 
Washington,  Oregon,  and  Nevada.  He  helped 
to  advance  geology  from  small  beginnings  into 
the  modern  science,  and  he  was  besides  one 
of  the  small  group  of  German-trained  instruc- 
tors who  made  the  American  university.  He  is, 


PREFACE  vii 

therefore,  both  in  science  and  in  the  higher 
education,  a  forerunner  of  the  present  era  and 
a  representative  of  a  great  day  which  is  no 
more. 

E.  T.  B. 

ANDOVER,  MASSACHUSETTS, 
September  i,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

I.   BOYHOOD.  1819-1839     . i 

II.   DR.    JACKSON   AND   THE   NEW    HAMPSHIRE 

SURVEY.    1839-1842 28, 

III.  IN  EUROPE.    1842-1847 61 

IV.  THE  LAKE  SUPERIOR  SURVEY.    1847-1850    .  88 
V.   THE    METALLIC   WEALTH   OF   THE    UNITED 

STATES.    1850-1854    113 

VI.   UNION  COLLEGE  AND  THE   STATE   SURVEYS. 

1855-1860 150 

VII.   THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  SUR- 
VEY.   1860  AND  1861 182 

VIII.   THE    SEARCH    AFTER   A    HIGH    MOUNTAIN. 

1862-1864 208 

IX.   THE    MIDDLE   YEARS   OF    THE   CALIFORNIA 

SURVEY.    1865-1869 241 

X.   THE  LAST  YEARS  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  SUR- 
VEY.   1869-1874 268 

XI.   THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  SURVEY    291 


CONTENTS 


XII.   THE  STURGIS-HOOPER  PROFESSORSHIP.  1874- 

1879 313 

XIII.  THE   LAST   OF   THE    CALIFORNIA    REPORTS. 

1879-1882 340 

XIV.  THE  CENTURY  DICTIONARY 357 

TITLES,     APPOINTMENTS,     AND     MEMBERSHIPS    IN 

LEARNED  SOCIETIES 385 

BIBLIOGRAPHY     . 387 

INDEX 403 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOSIAH  DWIGHT  WHITNEY  (photogravure)        Frontispiece 
From  a  photograph  by  Marshall  in  1889. 

WHITNEY'S  OWL  (Athene  Whitneyi  Cooper) 

Vignette  on  Title-page 

Colorado  Valley,  California.  The  smallest  owl  yet 
(1870)  discovered  within  the  United  States.  An 
unique  specimen,  named  for  J.  D.  Whitney. 

ANCESTORS  OF  J.  D.  WHITNEY  {photogravure)  .     .      4 

Thomas  Dwight,  Abel  Whitney,  J.  D.  Whitney,  Sr. 
From  old  family  portraits. 

THE  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  MOUNTAIN 42 

After  a  drawing  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  From  Report  of 
the  Geological  Survey  of  New  Hampshire  in  184.0 
under  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson. 

THE  FLUME 58 

After  a  drawing  byj.  D.  Whitney.  From  Report  of 
the  Geological  Survey  of  New  Hampshire  in  1840 
under  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson. 

J.  D.  WHITNEY  (photogravure) 68 

From  a  crayon  made  about  1845,  possibly  by  Cheney 
or  Alpheus  Morse. 

SAIL  ROCK,  LAKE  SUPERIOR 90 

After  a  drawing  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  From  a  Report 
of  the  Survey  of  Lake  Superior,  1847-30. 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

ARCHED  ROCK,  MACKINAW,  LAKE  SUPERIOR.     .     .108 

After  a  drawing  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  From  a  Report 
of  the  Survey  of  Lake  Superior,  1847-50. 

J.  D.  WHITNEY  (photogravure) 130 

From  a  daguerreotype  made  by  Whipple  of  Boston 
about  1830. 

GEOLOGICAL  GROUP 190 

William  M.  Gabb,  J.  D.  Whitney,  Clarence  King, 
Chester  Averill,  William  Ashburner,  C.  F.  Hoff- 
mann, William  H.  Brewer. 

From  a  photograph  made  in  December,  1863. 

MT.  SHASTA,  CALIFORNIA  (14,380  ft.) 224 

MT.    RAINIER,    WASHINGTON,    SOMETIMES    CALLED 
TACOMA  (14,363  ft.) 258 

MT.  HOOD,  OREGON  (11,932   ft),   AS    SEEN  FROM 
PORTLAND,  DISTANT  50  MILES 266 

MT.  ST.  HELENS,  OREGON  (10,000  ft),  AS  SEEN  FROM 

PORTLAND,  DISTANT  68  MILES 280 

Mt.  Rainier  at  the  left,  1 10  miles  north. 

JOSIAH  DWIGHT  WHITNEY  (photogravure)  ....  330 
From  a  photograph  by  Alman  in  1877. 

FAMILY  GROUP  OF  J.  D.  WHITNEY,  SR.'S,  CHILDREN 

AND  GRANDCHILDREN   UNDER  THE  JONATHAN   ED- 
WARDS ELM  IN  NORTHAMPTON,  1878      ....  336 

THE  Two  BROTHERS  (photogravure) 368 

Josiah  Dwight  and  William  Dwight  Whitney. 
From  a  photograph  by  Marian  B.  Whitney  in  1887. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

THE  BOULDER 382 

The  dome-shaped  boulder  marking  Professor  Whit- 
ney's grave  is  a  block  of  Cambrian  quartzite  brought 
by  glacial  action  from  its  distant  bed  into  the  sub- 
urbs of  Northampton,  where  it  was  unearthed  in  the 
grading  of  a  road.  Here  it  was  discovered  by  one 
of  the  Whitney  family  in  1875,  and  moved  to  the 
home-lawn.  Professor  Whitney  often  spoke  admir- 
ingly of  it.  Hence  its  fitness  for  its  present  use. 

THE  BOOK-PLATE  on  the  inside  of  the  front  cover  repre- 
sents Mt.  Whitney  (14,502  ft),  the  highest  moun- 
tain in  the  United  States  outside  of  Alaska.  It  was 
discovered  and  named  for  Mr.  Whitney  during  his 
absence,  by  his  associates,  Prof.  W.  H.  Brewer  and 
Clarence  King,  in  1864.  It  was  not  ascended  till 
1873,  when  W.  A.  Goodyear,  another  of  Mr.  Whit- 
ney's associates,  ascended  and  measured  the  height. 
The  motto  "  Altiora  Petimus "  and  the  figures  of 
the  mining  surveyors  are  taken  from  the  Reports 
of  the  California  Survey. 


f  UNIVERSITY 


LIFE  AND   LETTERS  OF 
JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CHAPTER   I 
BOYHOOD.  1819-1839 

To  the  Brahmin  caste  of  Dr.  Holmes,  along 
with  Adamses  and  Peabodys  and  Eliots,  be- 
long the  Dwights.  The  common  ancestor  of 
them  all  was  John  Dwight  of  Dedham,  who 
came  over  from  the  English  Dedham,  in  1634 
or  1635,  and  their  habitat  was  central  and 
western  Massachusetts  and  the  lower  valley 
of  the  Connecticut,  together  with  those  parts 
of  New  York  State  that  were  settled  from  New 
England.  They  took  to  themselves  wives  of  the 
Woolseys,  Edwardses,  Lymans,  Hookers, 
Strongs,  Hawleys,  Sedgwicks.  Their  sons 
graduated  at  Yale,  and  became  clergymen, 
merchants,  members  of  Congress,  soldiers, 
missionaries,  editors,  lawyers,  authors,  or  phy- 
sicians. In  times  of  peace,  they  were  captains 
and  majors  in  the  state  militia;  at  the  taking 
of  Louisburg,  in  the  Revolution,  in  the  War 
of  1812,  and  in  the  Rebellion,  a  Dwight  com- 


2  JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

manded  at  the  least  a  regiment.  Their  type 
appears  in  the  three  presidents  whom  they 
gave  to  Yale  College,  and  in  the  heads  of  their 
great  mercantile  house  —  scholars,  who  were 
also  men  of  affairs;  business  men,  who  served 
faithfully  the  state.  It  is  a  thoroughly  sound 
and  able  stock,  and  although  none  of  its  mem- 
bers have  been  endowed  with  the  highest  gifts, 
few  have  fallen  to  mediocrity.  Few  families 
have  maintained  more  consistently  their  level 
of  capacity  and  achievement. 

Clarissa  Dwight,  daughter  of  Colonel  Josiah 
Dwight  of  Springfield,  heiress  also  and  belle, 
-married  Abel  Whitney,  whose  father,  Rev. 
Aaron  Whitney  of  Petersham,  had  been  a 
noted  Tory  in  the  days  before  the  Revolution. 
The  Whitneys,  like  the  Dwights,  were  of  the 
migration  of  1635,  in  the  person  of  John  Whit- 
ney of  Watertown.  He  was  from  London  ;  but 
the  family  is  a  thirteenth-century  stock,  of  the 
region  about  Whitney  Town,  in  Herefordshire, 
close  to  the  border  of  Wales.  Abel  Whitney, 
graduated  from  Harvard  in  1773,  took  to  the 
law,  helped  as  major  of  militia  to  put  xlown 
Shays's  Rebellion,  lost  his  property  in  the  un- 
settled times  which  followed  the  war,  and  dy- 
ing at  fifty-one,  left  to  his  twenty-year-old  son, 
the  first  Josiah  Dwight  Whitney,  the  care  of 
Clarissa  Dwight  and  her  six  younger  children. 


BOYHOOD 


The  frugality  and  the  business  acumen  which 
Abel  Whitney  lacked,  fell  in  double  measure 
upon  his  son.  The  boy  took  service  with  his 
uncles,  the  Dwights,  and  becoming  in  time 
their  purchasing  agent,  lived  two  years  in 
England,  whence  in  1815  he  brought  home  the 
first  news  of  Waterloo.  After  that,  he  set  up 
for  himself  in  Northampton  in  partnership 
with  a  younger  brother,  established  a  private 
banking-house  in  1829,  and  in  1833  founded 
the  institution  which  later  became  the  North- 
ampton National  Bank,  and  of  which  he  was 
for  more  than  thirty  years  cashier  and  president. 
By  these  various  means,  he  so  far  retrieved 
the  fortunes  of  the  family,  that  he  became  one 
of  the  half-dozen  most  prosperous  citizens  of 
Northampton.  He  built  him  a  house  on  the 
main  street  of  the  town,  on  the  site  of  Jonathan 
Edwards's  old  dwelling,  designing  the  building 
himself,  and  utilizing  the  old  door-step  of  the 
great  divine.  It  was  this  circumstance,  proba- 
bly, together  with  the  fact  that  one  of  his  uncles 
married  Rhoda  Edwards,  that  got  him  the 
name  of  being  himself  a  descendant  of  Edwards ; 
though  indeed  he  was  both  able  enough  and 
righteous  enough  to  justify  the  reputation  of 
Edwards's  blood. 

Josiah  Whitney,  senior,  had  become  a  con- 
firmed bachelor  of  thirty-two  before,  having 


4  JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

done  his  full  duty  by  his  father's  children,  he 
was  free  to  establish  a  family  of  his  own.  In 
1818  he  married  Sarah  Williston,  whom  he 
took,  a  girl  of  nineteen,  from  behind  the  pre- 
ceptress's desk  of  Hopkins  Academy  at  Hadley. 
She  was  a  beautiful  and  gracious  woman,  of 
rare  loveliness  of  character,  whom  her  friends 
admired  and  her  family  adored.  She  was, 
however,  morbidly  conscientious.  The  daugh- 
ter of  a  country  clergyman,  brought  up  in  a 
time  of  theological  stress,  she  lived  under  the 
fear  of  an  angry  God,  and  gave  to  the  concerns 
of  her  soul  efforts  which  a  wholesome-minded 
woman  would  have  spent  more  wisely.  Eight 
children  she  bore  in  fifteen  years,  and  died 
when  the  youngest  was  a  few  weeks  old. 

A  year  of  the  confusion  of  widowers'  houses, 
the  elder  children  sent  away  to  school,  the 
younger  given  over  to  the  care  of  relatives 
whom  they  did  not  love,  and  Josiah  Whitney, 
senior,  drove  to  Goshen  and  brought  home 
his  second  wife  Clarissa,  the  daughter  of  Capt. 
Malachi  James.  The  new  Mrs.  Whitney  was 
about  the  age  of  the  first  and  cousin  to  her 
brother's  wife ;  a  farmer's  daughter,  rich  in  all 
kindly  virtues,  and  rich  soon  in  the  sponta- 
neous love  of  her  step-children.  She  too  was 
a  religious  woman,  who  undertook  solemnly 
her  obligations.  "  I  hope,"  she  writes  a  few 


Thomas  Diulght  Abel  Whitney 

J.  D.  Whitney,  Sr. 

Ancestors  of  J.  D.  Whitney 


BOYHOOD 


weeks  after  her  marriage,  "  that  it  was  not 
without  some  feeble  desire  of  doing  something 
for  the  honor  and  glory  of  God  that  I  entered 
into  this  responsible  place."  Responsible  in- 
deed it  was ;  and  somewhat  arduous  withal, 
when,  to  the  eight  children  of  her  husband, 
Clarissa  Whitney  added  five  of  her  own. 

The  eldest  of  the  thirteen  is  the  subject  of 
this  biography,  Josiah  Dwight  Whitney,  Jr., 
who  was  born  in  Northampton,  November  23, 
1819,  and  was  therefore  fourteen  years  old 
when  his  mother  died.  The  education  of 
parents  usually  proceeds  at  the  expense  of  the 
first  child,  and  Josiah  in  his  early  years  under- 
went a  discipline  which  the  younger  members 
of  the  family  were  fortunately  spared.  Under 
the  influence  of  older  and  sterner  members  of 
her  family,  his  mother  often  did  violence  to 
her  gentle  heart,  and  in  the  effort  to  break  her 
little  son's  will,  punished  him  unreasonably. 
The  harsh  regimen  seems  in  no  wise  to  have 
diminished  Josiah's  love  for  his  parents;  it  may 
well,  nevertheless,  have  been  the  cause  of  a 
certain  cloudiness  of  temper  which  he  never 
completely  outgrew. 

The  younger  Josiah  Whitney  made  his  first 
acquaintance  with  the  world  beyond  North- 
ampton during  the  summer  after  he  was 
eight.  There  were  only  district  schools  in  his 


6  JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

native  town,  but  twenty  miles  away  among  the 
hills  at  Plainfield,  Rev.  Moses  Hallock  took 
boys  into  his  family  to  be  educated.  Visiting 
has  always  been  a  means  of  culture  in  New 
England,  and  in  the  old  days  it  was  the  custom 
to  exchange  children  among  relatives,  or  to 
send  them  away  for  a  winter,  that  they  might 
attend  school  and  learn  something  of  the  ways 
of  other  households.  "  Parson  "  Hallock  had 
somewhat  systematized  the  general  practice. 
He  took  four  or  five  little  boys  into  his  house, 
taught  them  the  common  branches,  trained 
them  to  do  his  chores,  and  presented  each  with 
a  lamb  to  bring  up  —  the  animal,  however,  re- 
verting on  the  boy's  departure.  The  Hallocks 
were  no  ordinary  people,  and  their  home 
school,  during  the  thirty-five  years  and  more 
of  its  existence,  helped  to  educate  some  three 
hundred  pupils,  among  them  the  poet  Bryant 
and  John  Brown  of  Ossawatomie. 

Here  went  Josiah  Whitney,  in  the  summer 
of  1828,  when  the  parson  was  nearly  seventy 
and  much  of  the  teaching  had  fallen  to  his 
daughter,  Miss  "Patty"  Hallock.  With  him 
were  three  other  Northampton  lads,  one  of 
them  a  grandson  of  Caleb  Strong,  Governor 
of  Massachusetts.  The  boys  reserved  their 
opinion  on  the  quality  of  their  instruction,  but 
were  unanimous  concerning  the  plainness  of 


BOYHOOD 


Plainfield  living.  One  of  the  four  ran  away 
and  went  home,  complaining  that,  since  his 
education  had  been  in  progress,  he  had  had 
nothing  to  eat  but  potatoes  and  milk.  Those, 
however,  were  the  days  when  parental  author- 
ity was  wont  to  assert  itself,  and  the  little  lad 
went  back  to  his  potatoes  in  short  order;  while, 
by  way  of  making  him  remember  his  lesson, 
he  went  on  foot,  twenty-odd  miles  over  New 
England  hills. 

Josiah  remained  with  the  Hallocks  until  fall ; 
then  returned  home,  the  proud  bearer  of  the 
following  document:  — 

This  certifies  that  Master  Josiah  D.  Whit- 
ney has,  while  my  pupil,  conducted  with  much 
propriety  and  beauty. 

Three  months  have  passed  fleetly  and  de- 
lightfully along,  enlivened  by  his  vivacity,  and 
cheered  by  his  intellectual  improvement  and 
grateful  affection. 

Ever  attentive  to  instruction,  O  !  may  he 
listen  to  the  precepts  of  "Eternal  Wisdom," 
and  so  bloom  above  the  skies ! 

His  affectionate  instructor, 

MARTHA  HALLOCK. 

One  incident  only  has  survived  from  these 
early  days.  Josiah  was  a  lad  of  eight  and  an 


8  JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

aunt  was  teasing  him,  saying  that  when  he  grew 
up  he  would  probably  have  to  content  himself 
with  being  a  boot-black.  "Well,"  replies  the 
boy,  "  if  I  am  nothing  but  a  boot-black,  I  '11  be 
the  best  boot-black  there  is ! " 

After  the  summer  at  Plainfield,  private 
schools  and  the  Southampton  Academy  took 
care  of  Josiah's  education  until  he  was  twelve ; 
then  he  entered  the  Round  Hill  School  at 
Northampton.  This  was  an  unusual  institution, 
a  copy  of  the  French  and  German  schools  for 
boys,  and  "  the  first  in  the  new  continent  to 
connect  gymnastics  with  a  purely  literary  es- 
tablishment." It  had  been  founded  by  Joseph 
Green  Cogswell  and  'George  Bancroft;  the 
former  was  still  its  head.  Its  students  came 
largely  from  Massachusetts  and  New  York,  but 
there  were  many  also  from  the  South  and 
West,  and  a  few  even  from  Mexico,  the  West 
Indies,  Brazil,  and  Europe ;  while  among  the 
three  hundred  pupils  of  its  short  ten  years 
of  existence,  a  remarkable  number  afterwards 
became  famous.  Amidst  these  uncommon  ad- 
vantages, Josiah  remained  two  years.  Then 
in  the  autumn  of  1834,  Round  Hill  proving, 
it  would  seem,  a  little  too  cosmopolitan  and 
worldly,  he  followed  one  of  the  masters,  Stiles 
French,  to  the  school  which  he  established  at 
New  Haven. 


BOYHOOD 


JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY,    SENIOR,  TO 
STILES    FRENCH,    ESQ. 

NORTHAMPTON,  October  4,  1834. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  With  this  I  send  you  my 
son  Josiah,  whom  I  commit  to  your  care,  with 
a  full  confidence  that  you  will  do  all  that  can 
be  done  to  promote  his  education  and  prepare 
him  for  usefulness  in  whatever  sphere  Provi- 
dence may  design  for  him.  Such  is  my  general 
wish,  and  when  I  say  "education,"  you  will  un- 
derstand me  as  meaning  not  merely  cultivation 
of  the  intellect,  but  also  of  the  heart  and  manners 
—  everything,  in  short,  that  prepares  a  man  for 
usefulness  here  and  happiness  hereafter. 

I  am  not  aware  that  Josiah  is  "  immoral,"  or 
has  any  vicious  habits.  You  may  well  suppose 
that  he  has  suffered  from  the  loss  of  a  devoted 
mother  —  one  who  was  eminently  qualified  to 
superintend  the  education  of  her  children. 
This  loss  he  has  severely  felt  —  nor  do  I  think 
he  has  escaped  imbibing  some,  perhaps  many, 
wrong  notions  and  feelings  from  associating 
with  the  boys  on  Round  Hill.  I  trust  they  are 
not  so  deeply  rooted  but  that  you  may  easily 
counteract  them. 

I  have  not  consented  to  his  going  to  New 
Haven  and  incurring  such  an  expense  —  which 
I  cannot  afford  for  my  other  children  —  with- 


io          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

out  a  full  understanding  with  him,  that  he  is 
to  make  the  most  of  his  time,  apply  himself 
closely  to  his  studies,  and  strive  to  fit  himself 
for  business.  On  his  part  there  seems  to  be  a 
cordial  acceptance  of  these  terms  and  a  deter- 
mination faithfully  to  fulfill  the  conditions.  It  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  him — for  altho'  I 
shall,  if  no  misfortune  befalls  me,  have  some- 
thing to  give  my  children  that  will  aid  them; 
when  divided  among  them  it  will  do  but  little 
toward  making  them  independent,  and  they 
must  depend  upon  their  own  exertions.  I  wish 
to  do  all  I  can  to  fit  them  for  taking  care  of 
themselves  and  being  useful,  rather  than  lay 
up  the  money  for  them. 

It  was  the  earnest  desire  of  his  mother,  and 
is  mine,  that  Josiah  may  become  a  devoted 
minister  of  Christ.  At  present  he  is  inclined 
to  go  into  mercantile  business,  and  I  wish 
therefore  the  two  objects  to  be  kept  in  view. 
From  what  you  have  known  of  his  education, 
and  what  you  will  learn  from  him,  you  will  be 
better  able  to  judge  of  the  studies  he  had  best 
pursue  than  I  am.  I  wish  he  should  retain  all 
he  has  learned,  that  would  prepare  him  to  enter 
college  (in  case  he  should  hereafter  alter  his 
mind),  and  to  make  such  advances  in  these 
studies,  that  he  might  enter  at  an  advanced 
standing.  You  will  oblige  me  by  reporting  to 


BOYHOOD  ii 


me  his  progress  and  conduct,  and  your  views 
of  the  best  course  for  him,  as  often  as  con- 
venient. I  beg  at  any  rate  that  he  may  not 
suffer  for  want  si  full  employment. 

Josiah  is  very  desirous  of  continuing  his  at- 
tention to  drawing.  I  have  not  denied  him  the 
privilege,  but  have  referred  him  to  you.  I  have 
not  much  money  to  spare  for  mere  accomplish- 
ments^ but  I  think  it  important  that  every 
young  man  should  have  some  occupation  for 
his  hours  of  relaxation,  to  prevent  his  falling 
into  bad  habits  or  bad  company.  He  is,  I 
think,  naturally  shy,  especially  of  the  best  so- 
ciety, and  therefore  perhaps  the  more  needs 
such  occupation.  I  would  not  however  think  it 
proper  to  waste  much  time  or  money  in  that 
way.  If  you  can  draw  him  to  be  interested  in 
such  society,  I  think  it  would  be  of  essential 
service  to  him. 

Thus  the  father  to  the  pedagogue  ;  and  thus, 
from  time  to  time,  to  the  boy  himself :  — 

MY  DEARLY  BELOVED  SON,  — .  .  .  I  cannot 
express  to  you  how  much  I  was  gratified  by 
your  visit  —  and  chiefly  because  I  saw  an  im- 
provement in  your  character  and  feelings, 
which  assured  me  that  you  were  in  the  way  of 
preparation  for  happiness  and  usefulness.  .  .  . 


12          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

I  hope  you  will  write  again  very  soon,  and 
tell  me  all  about  yourself  and  your  own  feel- 
ings and  wishes;  these  are  what  I  am  most 
interested  in.  During  the  present  term  you 
will  have  time  to  think  much  of  the  subject  of 
your  future  course  of  life.  I  shall  be  glad  to 
consult  your  taste  in  the  matter,  but  I  trust 
you  will  see  the  absolute  necessity  of  having 
some  occupation  by  which  to  obtain  a  living, 
when  you  cease  to  lean  upon  me  —  and  as 
that  day  must  surely  come  before  long,  it  would 
be  the  height  of  folly  not  to  anticipate  and 
prepare  for  it.  ... 

I  want  you  to  bear  in  mind  constantly  that 
the  happiness  of  your  whole  life  depends  very 
much  upon  the  improvement  you  make  and 
the  habits  you  form  during  the  time  that  you 
are  with  Mr.  French.  Habits  of  self-denial  and 
habits  of  application  to  whatever  you  under- 
take, can  alone  fit  you  for  usefulness  or  happi- 
ness. ...  I  do  not  wish  you  to  be  mean  in 
anything,  but  careful  and  to  waste  nothing. 
Nor  do  I  wish  you  to  practice  so  much  self- 
denial  as  I  was  obliged  to  the  first  40  years  of 
my  life.  But  you  must  avoid  contracting  waste- 
ful or  extravagant  habits  of  any  kind,  of  which 
self-indulgence  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous. 
Only  look  forward  to  the  time  not  far  distant 
when  you  must  provide  for  your  own  wants, 


BOYHOOD  13 


and  you  will  see  the  important  bearing  of  the 
subject.  You  cannot  then  feel  an  honorable 
independence,  unless  you  are  able  to  provide  for 
yourself,  without  asking  favors  of  friends.  .  .  . 

Avoid  all  places  of  vice  or  doubtful  amuse- 
ment. Never  let  me  hear  of  your  being  once 
seen  in  an  oyster  shop,  or  eating  or  drinking 
house,  or  even  Confectioners'  Shops,  unless  it 
be  for  the  purpose  of  getting  sugar  plums  for 
the  children.  Such  places  are  m  the  certain 
road  to  ruin.  .  .  . 

Within  the  last  week  the  dead  body  of 
your  late  schoolmate,  David  Adams,  has  been 
brought  home  from  Pittsfield.  It  is  a  severe 
blow  to  his  widowed  mother  —  but  she  has 
the  consolation  of  believing  that  he  was  pre- 
pared to  depart  to  a  better  world.  I  hope  it 
will  lead  his  companions,  especially  my  dear 
Son,  to  consider  the  uncertainty  of  life,  and 
the  importance  of  being  prepared  for  an  ex- 
change of  worlds.  I  hope  you  will  not  forget 
the  good  counsel  your  own  dear  mother  has 
so  often  given  you  —  how  painful  would  be 
the  thought  that  any  one  of  us  should  be  miss- 
ing at  the  great  day. 

I  shall  be  disappointed  if  you  do  not  write 
us  this  week.  .  .  . 

Yours  truly  and  affectionately,     J.  D.  W. 

If  you  have  a  Virgil  that  you  do  not  need, 


14          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

either  at  home  or  with  you,  it  may  save  me 
the  expense  of  a  new  one  —  if  at  home,  tell  us 
where  it  is ;  if  at  New  Haven  send  it  by  the 
first  opportunity.  .  .  . 

Don't  let  your  next  letter  stop  till  you  get 
to  the  bottom  of  the  third  page. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  household  at  Northamp- 
ton, there  had  been  much  anxious  thought  and 
much  anxious  prayer  over  Josiah's  future.  The 
immediate  call  of  the  Dwight  blood  was  toward 
a  business  career;  Whitneys,  Willistons,  and 
Birdseyes  had  followed  the  professions.  Both 
parents  would  have  rejoiced  had  their  eldest- 
born  felt  called  to  the  ministry. 

Either  choice  would  have  satisfied  the  father, 
whose  own  health  threatened  to  break  down 
under  his  unremitting  toil,  so  that  he  was  impa- 
tient to  see  a  son  on  the  way  toward  filling  his 
place.  As  for  the  boy,  he  showed  no  special 
talent  for  business;  and  on  the  other  hand,  here 
he  was,  fifteen,  and  not  even  converted.  He 
had  a  decided  gift  for  music,  like  most  of  his 
family ;  he  sang  well,  and  played  several  mu- 
sical instruments,  self-taught.  He  drew  not  un- 
skillfully,  and  he  loved  pictures  and  all  beautiful 
things.  At  New  Haven,  moreover,  he  had  come 
under  the  influence  of  the  elder  Silliman,  whose 
popular  lectures  on  chemistry  had  founded  in 


,SE  L! 

OF  THE 


f  UNIVERSITY 

''BOYHOOD 


him  an  interest  in  natural  science.  The  trouble 
was  that  the  world  called  him  with  too  many 
voices ;  and  no  one  of  them  sounding  louder 
than  the  rest,  he  put  off  the  decision  and 
headed  for  college. 

With  Harvard  in  the  hands  of  the  Unita- 
rians, Yale  was  somewhat  inevitable  for  either 
a  Dwight  or  a  Whitney.  Josiah,  however,  went 
first  to  Phillips  Academy  at  Andover,  a  school 
even  then  famous  and  sixty  years  old.  There, 
in  a  year,  he  completed  his  preparation  for  col- 
lege, anticipated  the  studies  of  the  freshman 
class,  and  was  ready  to  enter  as  a  sophomore 
in  the  fall  of  1836.  It  was,  nevertheless,  doubt- 
ful how  far  Josiah  would  be  able  to  carry  out 
his  project.  His  father's  health  still  continued 
to  be  uncertain ;  and  Josiah,  the  idea  all  his 
own,  offered,  if  that  did  not  mend,  to  give  up 
all  plan  of  a  college  education,  return  home, 
and  enter  his  father's  bank. 

One  letter  only  survives  from  the  Andover 
days ;  to  his  sister  Elizabeth,  who,  two  years 
younger  than  himself,  was  of  all  his  brothers 
and  sisters  his  special  friend  and  confidant. 

ANDOVER,  February  22,  1836. 

MY  DEAR  SISTER,  — .  .  .  Upon  rummaging 
my  trunks  to  find  the  last  letter,  I  have  found 
that  the  date  of  my  last  letter  from  home  is 


16          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Jany  i,  and  here  it  is  22,  Feby.  I  have  received 
two  bundles  from  home,  one  containing  Chess- 
men, etc.,  and  the  other  a  pair  of  pantaloons 
and  Todd's  "  Student's  Manual."  I  felt  in  all 
the  pockets,  shook  the  book,  turned  the  papers 
over  and  over  again,  and  knocked  over  the 
table  hoping  to  find  a  letter,  but  no,  not  so 
much  as  one  word.  Those  new  pens  will  be 
rusty  for  want  of  use.  A  fortnight  ago  last 
Thursday  afternoon,  not  having  felt  well  for 
the  last  week  and  our  class  being  engaged  in 
reviewing  what  was  familiar  to  me,  I  walked 
down  to  Boston  [20  miles]  with  one  of  our 
boarders.  ...  I  engaged  to  meet  my  compan- 
ion in  Boston  at  io|-  Saturday,  but  although 
I  waited  until  12  he  did  not  make  his  appear- 
ance. So  I  started  alone  at  \2\  and  reached 
Andover  at  six  o'clock.  .  .  .  How  does  the 
Northampton  Female  Seminary  flourish?  I 
should  like  to  hear  all  about  it,  how  far  you 
have  got  in  your  Greek,  and  how  far  in  your 
Hebrew.  There  is  a  female  school  here,  where 
several  of  our  boarders  and  two  of  Capt.  West's 
daughters  attend.  Broad  hints  are  thrown  out 
that  young  ladies  come  to  Andover  to  school 
for  the  sake  of  finding  a  help-mate.  I  should 
like  to  hear  about  the  boys'  school,  which  I 
suppose  William  attends.  The  present  term  of 
our  school  is  out  in  about  6  weeks.  We  have 


BOYHOOD  17 


some  good  scholars  and  some  blockheads.  All 
the  boys  in  my  class  are  fine  fellows.  .  .  .  Please 
to  tell  Father  that  I  should  like  to  have  him 
send  me  some  money.  .  .  . 

Your  aff.  brother,  JOSIAH. 

The  letters  which  young  Whitney  wrote 
home  during  his  three  years  at  Yale,  and  the 
replies  which  the  entire  family,  as  fast  as  they 
learned  to  write,  joined  in  sending  him,  would 
alone  fill  this  volume.  I  select,  therefore,  a 
small  portion  of  those  which  he  addressed  to 
the  same  charming  correspondent  whose  ac- 
quaintance the  reader  has  already  made.  She 
on  her  side,  during  her  brother's  course  at  New 
Haven,  graduated  at  the  female  seminary  in 
Northampton,  went  as  pupil-teacher  to  the 
Abbot  female  seminary  at  Andover,  graduated 
at  the  head  of  her  class,  and  by  the  time  Josiah 
was  through  college,  was  settled  at  Ipswich, 
teaching  in  still  another  female  seminary  there. 
The  two,  therefore,  though  they  wrote  at  length 
and  intimately,  saw  little  of  each  other.  Postage 
in  those  days  was  high,  twenty-five  cents  for 
the  customary  single  large  sheet,  folded  to  be 
its  own  envelope  and  sealed  with  wax.  Such 
a  missive,  well  crossed  or  written  upside  down 
between  the  lines,  would  contain  a  third  of  one 
of  the  chapters  of  this  book.  One  such  letter  a 


18          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

month  from  each  absent  member  was  the  rule 
in  the  Whitney  family.  Those  which  follow, 
written  during  Josiah's  college  days  and  up 
to  the  reform  of  the  postal  laws  in  1845,  should 
be  understood  to  give,  in  general,  less  than 
half  the  actual  text. 

TO    HIS    SISTER   ELIZABETH 
YALE  COLLEGE,  NEW  HAVEN,  March,  1837. 

.  .  .  Well,  I  suppose  that  you  will  like  to  hear 
how  matters  and  things  go  on  in  College.  Just 
imagine  me  with  my  feet  on  the  top  of  an 
Olmsted  stove,  my  room-mate  on  one  side 
of  me  and  a  table  between  us  covered  with 
books  and  papers  to  the  height  of  3  or  4  feet, 
engaged  in  writing  a  composition  which  has 
got  to  be  read  before  the  division  the  next  day. 
No  enviable  task!  Or  imagine  that  I  have  just 
completed  the  formidable  array  of  sums  for 
the  next  recitation,  and  am  ready  to  sit  down 
and  write  you  as  long  a  letter  as  I  can.  Every- 
thing goes  on  in  College  in  the  same  regular 
routine ;  recitation  succeeds  recitation.  We  go 
to  breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper  just  like  so 
many  automatons.  We  now  rise  at  5^  o'clock, 
and  have  evening  prayers  at  the  same  hour  in 
the  afternoon.  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know 
how  we  spend  our  time  that  we  have  which 
we  do  not  devote  to  study.  In  the  first  place, 


BOYHOOD  19 


almost  every  student  belongs  to  two  or  three 
literary  societies,  for  which  he  has  to  furnish 
essays,  debates,  orations,  etc.  If  a  person  at- 
tends to  these  as  he  ought  to,  they  require  a 
great  deal  of  time.  It  is  considered  an  honor 
to  be  elected  into  the  societies  in  the  two  upper 
classes.  This  is  one  way  in  which  time  is-  con- 
sumed. There  is  another  thing  which  is  a  sad 
enemy  to  time,  namely  "  loafering,"  i.  e.  visit- 
ing one  another's  rooms  without  any  ostensible 
purpose,  to  pass  away  time.  Every  one  who 
rooms  in  College  is  liable  to  this,  and  this  is 
the  greatest  objection  to  rooming  in  College. 

Another  thing  which  requires  time  and 
which  every  one  must  attend  to  if  he  hopes 
to  have  any  sort  of  health,  is  exercise.  For 
that  purpose  we  walk  about  the  streets  and 
alleys  of  New  Haven,  play  in  the  Gymnasium, 
etc.  One  of  the  great  bores  in  college  is  decla- 
mation in  the  chapel,  which  we  are  obliged 
to  perform  twice  a  term  before  the  faculty  and 
all  the  students.  I  have  made  a  good  many 
pleasant  acquaintances  this  term,  not  only  in 
our  class  but  in  other  classes.  College  is  a 
world  in  miniature;  there  are  a  great  many  fine 
fellows  who  would  appear  to  advantage  any- 
where, and  a  great  many  who  are  more  fit  for 
the  stable  or  the  grog-shop  than  for  the  literary 
pursuits  of  a  college.  .  .  .  But  although  en- 


20          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

grossed  with  the  busy  cares  and  pleasures  at- 
tendant on  my  residence  here,  do  not  think, 
my  dear  sister,  that  my  feelings  seldom  revert 
to  the  scenes  in  which  you  are  a  partaker.  Far 
from  it, — "  Home,  sweet  home  "  is  ever  present 
to  my  mind,  to  comfort  and  to  cheer.  ...  I 
should  suppose  that  all  Northampton  had  been 
converted  to  Abolitionism  as  they  have  had  so 
many  lectures  there.  We  don't  hear  so  much 
about  the  subject  lately,  as  we  used  to.  Mr. 
Webster  is  expected  to  deliver  an  address  here 
to-morrow,  as  he  passes  through  on  his  way 
home.  ...  It  is  about  the  time  now  for  play- 
ing ball,  and  the  whole  green  is  covered  with 
students  engaged  in  that  fine  game:  for  my 
part,  I  could  never  make  a  ball  player.  I  can't 
see  where  the  ball  is  coming  soon  enough  to 
put  the  ball-club  in  its  way. 

TO   HIS    SISTER  ELIZABETH 

NEW  HAVEN,  January  29,  1838. 

Praps  you  will  ax  what  I  have  been  doing 
this  term.  Well,  Ist,  I  have  not  injured  my 
health  by  hard  study  —  this  will  no  doubt  be  a 
comfort  to  you  to  hear.  2nd,  I  have  not  injured 
the  system  by  an  overabundance  of  rich  food, 
and  while  boarding  in  Commons,  have  carefully 
refrained  from  all  the  rich  and  tempting  variety 
of  pies,  cakes,  roast  turkeys,  oyster  pies,  etc., 


BOYHOOD  21 


daily  spread  before  me.  3d,  I  have  not  blown 
myself  away  by  playing  the  flute,  nor  got  into 
a  scrape  playing  the  fiddle.  On  the  contrary,  I 
have  been  a  good  boy,  or  as  Horace  says  ua 
good  shoemaker."  Our  venerable  Professor  of 
Unnatural  Philosophy  and  Stoves  [evidently 
the  physicist,  Olmsted],  being  confined  to 
bed  with  the  lockjaw  caused  by  uttering  some 
of  his  own  vile  English,  has  given  us  more  to 
do  this  term  than  usual.  Juniors  are  lazy  ani- 
mals to  make  the  best  of  them,  but  compared 
with  Seniors  they  are  locomotives  flying  at  the 
rate  of  50  miles  an  hour, —  the  personification 
of  industry,  the  acme  of  diligence.  .  .  .  How 
comes  on  Abolition  ?  I  want  you  to  send  me 
on  the  first  copy  of  the  Northampton  Aboli- 
tion paper  (if  it  is  ever  started),  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. I  received  a  very  ancient  copy  of  the 
"  Emancipator  "  the  other  day.  I  could  hardly 
decipher  the  date,  but  should  suppose  from 
various  circumstances  that  it  might  have  been 
issued  about  the  time  of  the  Universal  Deluge, 
and  that  Noah  had  used  it  to  teach  his  oldest 
child  his  A,  B,  Cs  out  of. 

TO    HIS    SISTER   ELIZABETH 

NEW  HAVEN,  June  26,  1838. 

...  It  was  so  dull  here  when  I  got  back  — 
that  on  Friday  I  went  down  to  N.York  to  visit 


22          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

the  exhibition  of  the  National  Academy  of  De- 
sign, et  cetera.  We  went  down  in  the  "  New 
York,"  the  fastest  steamer  in  the  world,  perform- 
ing the  distance  of  86  miles  in  4  hours,  forty 
minutes!  ...  I  spent  about  four  hours  in  the 
Ex.  and  then  went  all  about  the  city  to  pur- 
chase materials  for  Painting  in  Oil,  and  some 
Music.  .  .  .  The  next  day  we  returned  and 
once  more  took  up  our  stations  in  the  cider- 
mill  track  of  College  Life.  You  cannot  imagine 
a  pleasanter  room  than  that  which,  as  No.  i,  fell 
to  my  share;  a  corner  room  with  two  bedrooms, 
each  in  itself  a*  pleasant  room,  delightfully 
shaded  and  looking  out  upon  the  Green,  and 
comfortably  furnished  and  ornamented  with 
paintings  by  a  "  distinguished  master?  Here  I, 
solus,  lounge  or  paint  or  fiddle  or  study  , — the 
latter  not  very  often  however.  We  have  enough 
to  do;  Optics,  Astronomy,  History,  German, 
with  lectures  on  clams  and  squids  and  lobsters 
and  shelfology  and  also  on  Botany  pretty  well 
occupy  our  time.  I  have  also  commenced 
Painting  in  Oil,  for  my  own  amusement.  .  .  . 

If  the  day  is  pleasant,  I  very  often  go  out  of 
the  city  3  or  4  miles,  after  breakfast,  and  spend 
the  forenoon  rambling  about  for  flowers  and 
sketches.  Besides  painting,  which  I  devote  as 
much  time  to  as  I  can  possibly  spare,  I  am  very 
enthusiastic  in  learning  German.  I  and  a  class- 


BOYHOOD  23 


mate,  who  is  from  Pennsylvania,  where  they 
talk  German  a  good  deal,  hardly  speak  to  each 
other  in  English.  I  am  reading  Goethe's  Au- 
tobiography. ...  I  have  the  honor  to  be 
elected  member  of  the  <I>  B  K  and  X  A  3>  So- 
cieties. 

TO   HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH 

NEW  HAVEN,  February  3,  1839. 

Since  I  wrote  last  I  have  been  home  and 
enjoyed  a  delightful  vacation  of  a  couple  of 
weeks.  I  reached  home  New  Year's  morning 
just  in  time  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  an  innumer- 
able number  of  stockings  stretched  along  from 
one  side  of  the  fireplace  to  the  other,  all  filled, 
—  nay  stuffed  with  good  things,  among  others 
one  inscribed  with  my  name,  in  which  there 
was  a  beautiful  bible  from  Mother.  .  .  . 

Here  I  am,  the  same  as  ever,  studying  Philo- 
sophy and  Political  Economy  a  little,  painting 
a  little,  reading  a  little,  fencing  a  little,  doing 
nothing  a  good  deal.  I  am  dipping  a  little 
into  the  well  of  English  literature  of  olden 
time  together  with  my  friend  of  the  musical 
name.  We  are  reading  together  Ben  Jonson's 
plays  occasionally,  or  Shakespeare,  Jeremy 
Taylor,  Chaucer,  Spenser,  or  perhaps  Dryden. 
Thus  we  spend  many  an  evening  quite  com- 
fortably, leaving  Mathematics  and  all  the 


24          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

ologies  to  be  scattered  to  the  winds.  I  think 
it  a  great  privilege  to  have  good  libraries  to 
resort  to. 

TO    HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH 

NORTHAMPTON,  Sep lember  4,  1839. 

Commencement,  the  era  in  a  man's  life, 
went  off  well,  better  than  anybody  expected : 
in  fact  it  was  hinted  in  some  of  the  papers 
that  a  better  commencement  had  not  been  at- 
tended in  New  Haven,  and  that  a  finer  class 
never  left  the  walls  of  Old  Yale.  However,  you 
know  that  we  never  praise  ourselves,  so  that 
you  need  not  believe  any  more  than  you  please. 
As  I  had  to  appear  twice,  once  in  a  Colloquy 
besides  my  oration,  and  as  I  had  to  superin- 
tend the  whole  concern  as  chairman  of  the 
Committee,  and  to  play  the  fiddle  into  the 
bargain,  you  may  imagine  that  I  was  some- 
what busy,  and  that  no  one  was  more  rejoiced 
to  feel  that  it  was  all  over  and  successfully 
over,  than  myself,  as  we  assembled  together 
for  the  last  time,  as  a  class,  to  partake  of  a  gen- 
erous supper,  at  which  were  not  wanting  any 
of  the  requisites  for  enjoyment,  and  when  the 
feeling  of  sadness  that  we  were  to  sever  those 
ties  that  had  held  us  together  for  four  years, 
was  forced  to  yield  to  the  general  joy.  .  .  . 


BOYHOOD 


Well,  Father  was  not  at  New  Haven,  nor  a 
soul  of  any  of  my  relations  or  friends,  much  to 
my  disappointment.  I  assure  you  I  thought  of 
you  often  on  that  same  day,  and  while  the  rest 
of  my  classmates  were  flourishing  about  with 
their  sisters  and  other  female  friends,  I  was 
completely  solus.  .  .  .  The  crowd  in  the  city 
was  enormous  and  the  heat  astonishing,  so 
that  many  there  were  who  did  sweat  much  on 
that  eventful  day.  Our  Commencement  dinner, 
for  which  we  were  charged  $2.00,  was  com- 
posed principally  of  roast  pig  and  succotash; 
and  them  is  all  the  particulars  about  Com- 
mencement I  am  going  to  inflict  upon  you. 
...  I  start  day  after  to-morrow  for  Niagara 
—  Montreal —  Quebec  —  Lake  Champlain. 
Good-bye. 

J.  D.  W.,  Jr.,  A.  B. 

Three  years  at  Yale  had  done  for  Josiah 
Whitney  very  much  what  a  college  course  in 
his  day  was  intended  to  do.  So  much  of  classics 
and  mathematics  as  the  curriculum  prescribed 
he  had  dutifully  absorbed.  In  addition,  he  had 
learned  to  ride,  to  dance,  to  fence,  to  enjoy  long 
walks  in  the  country.  He  sang  in  the  college 
choir,  and  played  the  fiddle,  flute,  and  guitar. 
He  drew  accurately,  and  painted  in  water  colors 
and  in  oils.  Of  modern  languages,  he  read  some- 


26          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

what  freely  French,  German,  Italian,  and  Span- 
ish. Of  sciences,  though  his  real  training  came 
later,  he  knew  the  little  that  the  colleges  of  his 
day  taught  of  physics,  chemistry,  astronomy, 
geology,  paleontology,  anatomy,  mineralogy, 
botany.  More  important  than  the  knowledge 
of  any  special  science,  he  had  been  the  pupil  of 
Olmsted  and  Silliman.  He  had,  besides,  be- 
come so  omnivorous  a  reader  of  English  litera- 
ture, that  as  an  incident  to  a  vacation  at  home 
during  the  winter  of  his  senior  year,  he  de- 
voured in  two  weeks,  Wordsworth's  poems, 
"  Sir  Charles  Grandison,"  "  The  Faerie  Queen," 
Robertson's  "Charles  V.,"  Cowper's  Letters, 
Johnson's  lives  of  a  half-dozen  poets,  a  book  of 
travels  in  China,  and  a  controversial  work  on 
slavery.  In  addition,  he  had  already  begun  to 
collect  a  library,  chiefly  of  English  classics, 
modern  literature,  and  science.  He  aspired  to 
know  eight  languages  and  all  the  natural  sci- 
ences ;  but  he  despised  philosophy,  cared  little 
for  mathematics  and  hardly  more  for  physics. 
Chemistry  was  his  chief  interest,  and  geology 
his  avocation.  His  suggestions  of  laziness  in 
his  letters  are  merely  the  undergraduate  pose. 
In  reality  he  was  a  diligent  student,  with  a 
tenacious  memory  and  an  insatiable  interest 
in  the  things  of  the  mind.  His  membership  in 
the  <E>  B  K  society  is  witness  to  his  high  aca- 


BOYHOOD  27 


demic  standing;  his  chairmanship  of  his  class 
committee,  to  his  executive  ability. 

One  failing,  nevertheless,  neither  college  life 
nor  his  father's  reiterated  admonitions  had 
been  able  to  cure  —  his  native  unsociability. 
Like  many  another  shy  man,  he  could  be  bril- 
liant and  fascinating  in  the  company  of  those 
whom  he  found  congenial, —  his  friends  and 
his  family  loved  and  admired  him;  but  he  would 
not  put  himself  out  to  please  people  whom  he 
did  not  like.  He  had  unusual  independence  of 
mind ;  and  he  paid  the  price  in  a  corresponding 
deficiency  of  the  gregarious  instincts.  His 
father  thought  him  extravagant,  not  because 
he  was  wasteful,  but  because  he  was  fastidious 
and  loved  good  and  costly  things.  He  could 
do  without,  but  his  clothes  and  his  book-bind- 
ings and  his  concerts,  if  he  had  them  at  all, 
must  be  of  the  best.  Of  these  two  characteris- 
tics, the  one  gave  him,  throughout  his  life,  a 
cultivated  appreciation  of  all  forms  of  excel- 
lence ;  but  the  other  limited  his  efficiency  till 
the  end. 


CHAPTER   II 

DR.   JACKSON   AND   THE   NEW  HAMPSHIRE 
SURVEY.    1839-1842 

THE  community  to  which  Josiah  Whitney  re- 
turned, when  after  his  course  at  Yale  he  came 
back  to  his  father's  family  to  work  in  his  father's 
bank,  and  to  which  he  returned  many  times  in 
the  years  which  followed,  was  one  in  which  he 
might  easily  be  happy.  The  village  of  North- 
ampton is  a  charming  one,  beautiful  for  situ- 
ation, wide  and  shady  of  streets,  with  the  great 
elms  and  the  stately  Georgian  houses  which 
are  the  special  charm  of  the  older  New  England 
towns.  The  people  were  all  of  New  England 
stock,  neither  poor  nor  rich,  simple,  dignified, 
earnest.  If  life  in  such  a  community  appears 
somewhat  straight-laced,  let  us  not  forget  that 
the  Puritan  tradition  carried  also  a  familiar 
acquaintance  with  two  or  three  of  the  world's 
great  books,  and  with  some  of  the  best  house- 
hold furniture  that  human  taste  has  designed. 
In  such  a  society  the  Whitneyswere  natural 
leaders.  They  kept  open  house  for  relatives  and 
friends,  and  the  children  made  long  visits  back 
and  forth  with  their  cousins.  The  two  elder 
daughters,  Elizabeth  and  Sarah,  largely  for  the 


THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     29 

adventure,  went  south  to  teach  in  a  private 
school  in  Georgia;  and  their  southern  acquain- 
tances, in  return,  visited  them  at  Northampton 
during  several  summers.  It  was  a  household 
in  which  a  Virgil  or  a  Classical  Dictionary  ran 
through  the  family ;  where  the  purchase  of  a 
stove  for  the  kitchen,  a  carpet  for  the  parlor,  or 
a  lamp  for  the  front  hall,  were  matters  to  be 
communicated  to  absent  members ;  but  where 
money  was  always  forthcoming  for  books,  for 
travel,  for  lectures  and  concerts,  or  for  expensive 
schools.  It  was  a  family,  moreover,  that  could 
rejoice  to  sit  down  at  dinner  at  "  a  good  long 
table  full  of  Abolitionists,"  and  advise  the  re- 
jection of  a  suitor,  otherwise  eligible,  who  was 
an  Episcopalian  and  thought  it  not  wicked  to 
attend  the  theatre. 

The  entire  family  was  musical,  so  that  when 
Josiah,  always  the  devoted  slave  of  his  sisters, 
was  not  taking  them  on  picnics  and  horseback 
rides,  doing  escort  duty  of  an  evening,  or 
dancing  with  them  in  the  parlor  after  supper, 
he  was  pretty  likely  to  be  singing  in  the  family 
quartette,  or  playing  duets  on  flute  or  violin. 
Those  were  leisurely  days,  and  often,  as  the 
young  women  sewed,  Josiah  read  aloud  —  Jane 
Austen,  Carlyle,  Dickens,  and  Elizabeth's 
special  discovery,  "an  English  writer  of  the 
present  day,"  a  comparatively  unknown  person 


30         JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

called  Tennyson.  Josiah  was,  too,  the  special 
favorite  and  playfellow  of  the  younger  children. 
He  welcomed  each  new  addition  to  the  steadily 
increasing  troop,  watched  with  manifest  pride 
the  unfolding  of  their  varied  gifts  and  graces, 
and  made  himself  in  amusements  as  well  as  in 
studies  their  sympathizing  friend  and  adviser; 
while  under  his  initiative,  each  child  was  en- 
couraged to  cultivate  whatever  musical  talent 
it  had,  that  it  might  contribute  its  share  to  the 
family  enjoyment. 

When,  however,  it  came  to  settling  down 
to  a  vocation,  Josiah  Whitney  was  in  the  situ- 
ation of  a  squire  of  dames,  who,  admiring  many 
ladies,  cannot  settle  his  affections  upon  any 
one.  Art,  music,  science,  business,  even  the 
law,  attracted  him  by  turns.  He  even  con- 
sidered buying  the  farm  of  an  uncle  at  Portage, 
New  York,  who  was  tired  of  the  wild  west,  and 
wanted,  as  he  said,  to  move  back  east  nearer 
to  his  friends,  where  he  could  find  out  oftener 
than  once  a  week  what  was  going  on.  Josiah 
did  not  like  banking,  and  he  did  like  chemis- 
try. So  for  want  of  any  better  plan,  he  went  to 
Philadelphia  for  the  winter  of  1839,  to  study 
chemistry  with  Dr.  Robert  Hare,  professor  in 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  inventor  of  the 
oxy-hydrogen  blowpipe,  and  one  of  the  fore- 
most American  chemists  of  his  day.  Fortu- 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     31 

nately,  the  pastor  of  the  family  church  in 
Northampton  had  shortly  before  changed  to 
a  Philadelphia  pulpit,  and  Josiah  had  other 
friends  in  the  city,  besides. 

TO    HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH,    TEACHING   AT   ABBOT 
ACADEMY,  ANDOVER 

November  2,  1839. 

MY  DEAR  ELIZABETH,  —  How  do  you  affect 
the  hill  of  Science  and  East  winds  ?  My  teeth 
chatter  at  the  very  idea  of  the  liberties  which 
Jack  Frost  was  and  is  wont  to  take  with  nose 
and  toes  in  your  inhospitable  regions.  How 
have  you  been  piling  on  the  hickory  logs,  while 
I  have  been  luxuriating  in  the  glories  of  the 
Indian  Summer,  roving  on  the  banks  of  the 
Schuylkill  during  the  balmiest  days  of  the  finest 
season  of  the  year!  .  .  .  Hitherto  I  have  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  kill  the  Lions  of  Phila- 
delphia, as  Dr.  Hare  does  not  begin  his  lectures 
till  next  Monday,  when  I  expect  to  become 
more  of  a  working  man,  head  over  ears  in  pots 
and  kettles,  retorts  and  alembics,  and  all  the 
paraphernalia  of  a  well-stocked  Laboratory.  .  .  . 
[Here  follows  a  long  account  of  the  lions  of 
Philadelphia,  and  of  the  ways  of  Philadelphians, 
strange  to  New  England  eyes.] 

.  .  .  The  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  which  is 
constantly  open,  contains  together  with  West's 


32          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

sublime  painting  of  "  Death  on  the  pale  Horse," 
a  number  of  beautiful  originals,  particularly  a 
St.  Cecilia  by  Guido,  and  a  gem  of  a  painting 
by  the  same,  a  Ganymede.  Then  there  is  Sully's 
Gallery,  which  contains,  among  his  other  works, 
his  painting  of  the  Queen,  Miss  Victoria.  The 
churches  here  —  or  those  which  I  have  been 
into  —  are  not  very  remarkable  specimens  of 
taste.  St.  Stephen's  contains  a  gorgeous  paint- 
ing on  glass  of  King  John  signing  the  Magna 
Charta.  Mr.  Todd's  church,  where  I  went  half 
of  last  Sunday,  is  very  elegant  inside.  The 
music  was  very  good,  especially  Mr.  Kingsley's 
performance  on  the  organ,  which  was  very  fine 
indeed.  But  "jam  satis,"  I  presume  you  are 
ready  to  cry  out,  and  I  verily  promise  that  I 
never  will  inflict  such  another  catalogue  upon 
you.  .  .  . 

I  have  called  at  Mr.  Todd's  once  since  I 
came  here,  and  intend  to  call  on  Miss  Gould. 
I  saw  her  at  church  last  Sunday.  I  also  dined 
at  Mr.  Wharton's.  He  has  two  daughters  about 
your  and  Sarah's  ages,  who  talk  German  like 
a  book  and  play  divinely.  This  is  decidedly  a 
musical  city,  fine  concerts  here  very  often.  I 
find  that  I  am  almost  in  the  midst  of  as  mu- 
sical a  set  as  Hogarth's  enraged  musician  ever 
was.  I  have  two  flutes  on  one  side,  which  mur- 
der most  villainous  duets,  one  ditto  *  so-low ' 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY    33 

up  stairs,  one  piano  on  the  other  side,  thumped 
with  more  zeal  than  science,  and  to  crown  all, 
about  a  wagon-load  of  babies  down  stairs,  not 
to  mention  that  every  sweep  and  coal-seller  and 
newsboy  in  the  city  seems  to  redouble  his  ex- 
ertions as  he  comes  under  my  window.  But 
still  I  consider  myself  very  comfortably  "  lo- 
cated,"- -good  rooms  and  near  to  the  few  ac- 
quaintances I  have  in  the  city. 

Now  as  you  owed  me  a  letter  before,  I  send 
you  this  as  fair  warning  that  if  you  do  not 
answer  me  immediately,  I  shall  scratch  your 
name  out  of  my  books  and  close  my  account 
with  you  —  besides  cutting  you  off  with  a  shil- 
ling in  my  will.  Direct  to  74,  4th  Street  to 
Yours  truly  and  affectionately, 

J.  D.  WHITNEY. 

FROM    HIS    SISTER  ELIZABETH 

ANDOVER,  January  8,  1840. 

MY  DEAR,  DEAR  BROTHER,- — .  .  .  Perhaps  you 
will  wonder  that  I  am  passing  my  vacation  in 
Andover.  I  am  remaining  here  to  study  some 
and  read,  etc.,  instead  of  passing  the  time  in 
Boston,  as  I  had  a  very  urgent  invitation  to  do. 
I  am  reading  Tasso  —  not  in  the  original,  but 
I  wish  I  knew  Italian  so  that  I  could  —  but 
Hoole's  translation  of  it.  One  other  young  lady 
and  myself  are  looking  over  the  different  poets, 


34          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

studying  prosody,  etc.,  and  reciting  to  Mr. 
Stone.  It  is  a  very  pleasant  way  of  passing  the 
vacation  in  my  opinion.  What  think  you  of 
it?  I  have  been  dipping  into  metaphysics,  the 
last  term,  have  taken  up  the  Will,  and  have 
studied  Edwards  s  and  Pres1  Day's  books.  Next 
term  we  study  Upham  on  the  subject.  I  am 
very  much  interested  in  it,  but  have  not  de- 
cided as  yet  which  side  I  shall  take  in  the  great 
controversy  on  the  subject.  I  do  not  mean  to 
make  up  my  mind  until  I  have  studied  thor- 
oughly. ... 

Don't  think  you  weary  me  with  your  cata- 
logues of  sights,  for  I  admire  to  hear  about  any- 
thing you  see.  All  those  that  you  wrote  me  of, 
interested  me  much.  I  pray  you,  don't  fear 
to  tire  me  with  such  things,  you  never  do, 
or  can.  .  .  .  Dear,  dear  Josiah,  you  know, 
you  must  know,  that  I  long  to  write  you  on 
the  most  important  of  all  subjects.  I  cannot 
bear  to  send  this  letter  away  without  say- 
ing at  least  a  few  words  to  beg  you  to  think. 
Why  won't  you  tell  me  how  you  feel,  if  you 
have  any  feeling  at  all  on  the  subject,  and 
tell  me  if  you  dislike  very  much  to  have  me 
write  you  anything  on  the  subject,  and  if  it 
does  you  more  harm  than  good  ?  I  know  you 
are  older  and  know  so  much  more  than  I  do, 
that  I  cannot  bear  to  speak  of  what  I  know 


THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     35 

you  must  know  as  well  as  I  do  —  no,  not  as  well, 
for  if  you  could  feel?&  I  do,  you  would  think 
that  you  can  be  happy  in  no  other  way  than 
by  devoting  all  your  talents  to  the  Author 
of  your  being  —  to  Him  who  gave  you  all,  and 
who  will,  one  day,  require  of  you  all  you  have 
received.  Now  forgive  me  for  writing  thus.  I 
cannot  help  it.  Do  I  pray  you,  my  own  dearest 
brother,  think  of  these  things,  and  intrust  me 
with  your  thoughts.  Will  you  not  ? 

TO    HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH 

PHILADELPHIA,  January  23,  1840. 

A  severe  attack  of  inflammatory  rheumatism, 
which  has  confined  me  to  my  room  for  a  fort- 
night, must,  my  dear  sis.,  be  my  excuse  for  not 
immediately  answering  your  long  letter.  I  could 
almost  pardon  your  long  silence,  in  considera- 
tion of  the  peculiar  gratification  I  felt  in  hear- 
ing from  one  whom  I  had  almost  given  up  in 
despair  as  a  correspondent,  although  I  did  not 
really  believe  but  that  you  still  in  some  measure 
recollected  me,  your  elder  brother.  But  really 
you  treated  me  shockingly,  riest-ce-pas?  I  had 
made  half  a  dozen  resolutions  to  give  you  up 
as  a  gone  case,  but  they  were  all  scattered  to 
the  four  winds  on  seeing  your  well-known  su- 
perscription. 

They  have  not  treated  me  very  well  at  home. 


36          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

I  have  not  heard  a  word  from  Sarah :  for  aught 
I  know  she  may  be  friz  in  a  snow  bank  fifty 
feet  deep.  But  I  have  forgotten  what  I  had  to 
tell  you  in  my  last  letter,  it  is  so  long  since  I 
wrote  it.  Let  me  see.  I  must  have  talked  a 
great  deal  about /.  How  /was  a  chemist  and 
smelt  of  bottles  ;  how  /  burnt  his  fingers  and 
nose  with  acids  innumerable ;  how  /  blew  up 
occasionally,  and  the  other  interesting  varieties 
of  Laboratory  life.  Now,  pretty  much  all  I  have 
to  say  is  that  I  have  been  quite  sick,  am  get- 
ting better,  and  hope  in  two  or  three  days  to 
breathe  the  fresh  air  of  heaven,  instead  of  the 
confined  atmosphere  of  a  sick  chamber.  My 
friends  have  all  treated  me  with  a  great  deal  of 
kindness  and  attention,  alleviating  as  much  as 
possible  the  misery  of  being  sick  anywhere, 
and  especially  away  from  home.  .  .  . 

You  almost  petrify  me  with  horror  at  the 
bare  mention  of  the  books  you  are  studying.  I 
do  hope  you  won't  take  to  writing  on  Meta- 
physics, for  of  all  the  branches  of  human  Science 
for  a  young  lady  to  dip  into,  that  seems  to  me 
the  last. 

I  wish  you  would  direct  the  current  of  your 
mind  toward  some  of  the  modern  languages, 
and  penetrate  the  stores  of  knowledge  which 
lie  hidden  under  the  veil  of  the  German  lan- 
guage. I  shall  never  give  up  until  I  persuade 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     37 

you  to  learn  that  wonderfully  rich  and  copious 
language.  I  have  just  been  reading  Mrs.  Hem- 
ans's  life  and  was  surprised  to  see  how  much 
she  owed  to  that  language  and  her  unbounded 
love  for  its  literature.  It  is  all  the  fashion  at 
present  among  the  Philadelphia  ladies  to  talk 
German.  I  know  several  who  speak  it  like  a 
book.  This  is  a  very  musical  city,  and  of  course 
there  are  all  sorts  of  musical  parties  going  on, 
as  well  as  concerts  and  soirees,  etc.  I  went  to  a 
few  to  see  how  they  carried  on  such  things  here, 
but  as  I  found  that  invitations  increased  geo- 
metrically, while  my  time  was  decreasing  in  a 
like  ratio,  I  was  obliged  to  give  them  up  almost 
entirely.  You  recollect  Mrs.  Kingsley.  I  have 
called  there  several  times ;  she  spoke  of  you  as 
an  old  acquaintance.  They  are  delightful  mu- 
sicians and  it  is  quite  a  treat  to  hear  Mr.  K. 
play  at  Mr.  Todd's  church,  where  I  generally  go. 
You  must  excuse  the  brevity  of  this  letter,  as 
I  am  still  as  weak  as  water  from  the  effects  of 
leeching  and  starvation.  I  hope  that  you  will  an- 
swer this  immediately  and  then  I  shall  be  well 
enough  to  write  you  a  long  letter. 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

J.  D.  W.  Jr. 

To  that  part  of  his  sister's  letter  which  was 
most  important  of  all  to  her,  Josiah  makes  no 


38          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

reply.  Nor  does  it  appear  that  the  condition 
of  his  soul  ever  gave  him  any  special  concern. 
True,  he  had  lived  all  his  life  among  religious 
people,  and  he  was  at  this  period  a  pretty 
regular  churchgoer.  But  he  was  also  a  geo- 
logist; and  those  were  the  days  when  a  thou- 
sand pulpits  were  shouting  denunciation  of 
Lyell,  and  the  test  of  orthodoxy  was  a  belief 
in  six  days  of  creation  and  a  universal  flood. 
To  this  bitter  controversy  over  the  age  of  the 
earth,  there  succeeded,  after  1859,  a  struggle  no 
less  bitter  over  the  theory  of  evolution.  Between 
the  two,  for  the  young  man  of  science,  the  way 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  indeed  strait. 

For  Whitney,  however,  there  was  in  all  this 
no  such  soul's  tragedy  as,  let  us  say,  over- 
shadowed the  life  of  Romanes.  He  was  essen- 
tially a  "  tough-minded "  person.  His  family 
affections  and  the  two  arts  which  he  cultivated 
satisfied  his  emotional  needs  ;  he  was  too  thor- 
oughly pragmatical  to  trouble  himself  over 
predestination  and  free  will.  In  short,  he  was 
an  unimaginative  young  man,  contented  to  do 
his  day's  work;  and  to  let  the  universe  go  on 
in  its  own  way. 

This  attitude  he  retained  throughout  life. 
He  was  never  a  scoffer  at  religion ;  he  even 
went  to  church  when  it  suited  his  convenience, 
and  in  a  loose  way  counted  as  a  Unitarian. 


THE   NEW  HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     39 

But  he  had  too  much  steady-going  morality 
to  experience  any  conviction  of  sin;  and  thus 
he  adopted,  in  the  forties,  the  attitude  toward 
religion  which,  nearly  two  generations  later, 
has  become  well-nigh  universal  among  scien- 
tific men. 

Such  an  attitude,  naturally,  was  altogether 
incomprehensible  to  his  mother's  daughter; 
and  the  troubled  girl,  her  brother's  illness  still 
on  her  mind,  added  at  the  end  of  a  long  and 
affectionate  letter,  "  could  we  ever  have  been 
happy  again,  knowing  that  one  we  so  dearly, 
dearly  love  had  gone,  and  we  should  never, 
never  see  him  again —  never  even  in  eternity." 

As  for  the  concerns  of  this  world,  with  March 
of  1840  young  Whitney  was  back  again  at 
Northampton,  uncertain  as  ever  about  his  fu- 
ture career.  It  happened  that  the  elder  Whitney 
numbered  among  his  acquaintances  no  less  a 
man  than  Charles  T.  Jackson,  chemist  and 
mineralogist,  and  world-famous  a  few  years 
later,  as  a  discoverer  of  anesthesia.  Jackson, 
trained  abroad  and  a  pupil  of  Elie  de  Beaumont, 
had  already  made  the  first  official  geological 
surveys  of  Nova  Scotia  and  Rhode  Island,  and 
was  then  State  Geologist  of  New  Hampshire. 
He  had,  besides,  a  private  laboratory  in  Boston, 
where  he  had  some  half-dozen  pupils  and  assist- 
ants: in  fact,  he  seems  to  have  been  the  first 


40          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

person  outside  of  Germany  to  teach  chemistry 
systematically  by  laboratory  methods.  To  him, 
early  in  April,  went  Josiah  Whitney  with  his 
father's  note  of  introduction,  and  letters  from 
Silliman  and  Hare. 

Dr.  Jackson  was  most  kind.  He  made  Whit- 
ney his  companion  at  a  meeting  of  geologists 
in  Philadelphia,  tried  to  find  him  scientific 
work,  and  failing  in  that,  took  him  into  his 
laboratory.  Jackson  himself  was  having  trouble 
with  his  legislature,  an  experience  by  no  means 
uncommon  with  the  heads  of  geological  sur- 
veys ;  and  by  way  of  circumventing  the  poli- 
ticians, who  demanded  that  all  salaried  posi- 
tions on  the  survey  should  be  filled  by  "citizens 
of  New  Hampshire,"  he  arranged  with  the 
governor,  John  Page,  to  have  no  paid  assistants 
at  all.  Instead,  he  took  the  men  from  his  labo- 
ratory, several  of  whom  already  knew  some- 
thing either  of  geology  or  of  engineering,  and 
all  of  whom  volunteered  to  serve  without  pay, 
with  the  chance  that  the  legislature  might,  in 
the  end,  refund  their  expenses.  Whitney,  in 
default  of  anything  more  remunerative,  joined 
the  party ;  and  proving  to  be  the  most  capable 
of  the  young  men,  was  set  to  work  somewhat 
independently  with  one  associate. 

Dr.  Jackson's  official  instructions  for  Whit- 
ney's first  geological  work  were  as  follows :  — 


THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     41 

"  Messrs.'].  D.  Whitney,  and  M.  B.  Williams 
are  authorized  by  me  to  act  as  assistants  on 
the  Geological  Survey  of  the  State  of  New 
Hampshire.  They  will  proceed  to  make  a 
series  of  sections  across  the  rock  formations 
of  the  state,  for  the  purpose  of  delineating  the 
extent  and  limits  of  the  different  rocks.  They 
will  represent  the  same,  upon  the  map  of  the 
state,  in  colors,  and  also  in  profile.  They  will 
measure  the  heights  of  mountains,  from  their 
bases,  and  from  the  sea-level,  and  will  note  the 
latitudes  and  longitudes  of  the  different  places 
which  are  of  sufficient  importance.  They  will 
examine  the  dip  and  direction  of  strata,  and 
note  their  contents ;  the  direction  and  the  di- 
mensions of  the  beds  or  veins  of  useful  min- 
erals, collecting  specimens  for  the  state  cabinet 
and  for  chemical  analysis.  They  will  also  col- 
lect specimens  of  all  remarkable  soils,  for  the 
same  purposes,  noting  the  crops  raised  thereon, 
with  such  other  statistical  information,  as  can 
be  obtained. 

"  They  will  note  the  direction  of  mountain 
ranges,  in  relation  to  the  theory  of  Elie  de 
Beaumont. 

"  They  will  correct  the  Topography  of  the 
map  so  far  as  practicable,  and  will  collect  such 
statistical  information,  as  may  subserve  the 
publick  interest." 


42          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Messrs.  Whitney  and  Williams  thereupon 
equipped  themselves  with  a  large  covered 
wagon  and  an  ancient  horse,  with  tents, 
blankets,  cooking  utensils,  compasses,  clino- 
meters, barometers,  theodolite,  blowpipes,  re- 
agents, drawing-tools,  maps ;  and  began  that  in- 
ventory of  the  natural  resources  of  the  state 
which  in  the  thirties  and  forties  passed  for  a 
geological  survey.  Jackson  himself  was  of  all 
state  surveyors  one  of  the  most  primitive  in 
his  methods,  while  the  State  of  New  Hampshire 
is  peculiarly  unsuited  to  be  the  training  ground 
of  a  beginner,  especially  if  that  beginner  is  to 
struggle  with  Elie  de  Beaumont's  quite  erro- 
neous theories  of  mountain  building.  It  is 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  summer  of  1840 
brought  the  two  boys  little  beyond  the  experi- 
ence of  which  one  has  a  glimpse  in  Whitney's 
letters  to  his  sister. 

TO    HIS   SISTER   ELIZABETH 

CLAREMONT,  June  21,  1840. 

MA  CH£RE,  — ...  Dr.  J.  joined  us  here  on 
Tuesday  night,  just  as  we  returned  from  the 
ascent  of  Ascutney  Mt.  and  we  went  on  the 
next  day  to  Proctorsville  and  Plymouth,  Vt., 
where  we  spent  two  days  in  examining  the 
marble  and  serpentine  quarries,  which  furnish 
the  finest  material  in  the  world  for  tables  and 


THE   NEW  HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     43 

such  like,  and  when  you  are  married  I  shall 
take  great  pleasure  in  presenting  you  with  a 
specimen.  We  have  also  visited  Acworth  and 
overhauled  and  explored  everything  in  this  re- 
gion. To-morrow  we  start  for  Haverhill,  prin- 
cipally to  be  introduced  to  the  Governor,  who 
originated  the  Survey  and  takes  great  interest 
in  it.  ...  I  have  joined  company  with  Mr. 
Williams  in  doing  the  sections  on  which  we 
are  to  report  in  our  own  name,  .  .  .  and  we 
are  to  work  .  .  .  together  from  the  southwest 
corner  of  the  state,  diagonally  across  to  the 
sources  of  the  Macgalloway  river  which  forms 
the  northern  line  of  the  state.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  The  quantity  of  our  baggage  is  enor- 
mous. Yet  /  find  that  I  have  omitted  at  least 
half  the  articles  I  want,  and  brought  as  many 
that  I  do  not  want  at  all.  I  will  lay  any  wager 
that  you  never  would  have  thought  a  tin 
whistle  or  a  gimlet  very  necessary  things,  yet 
there  are  no  two  things  that  we  use  more.  .  .  . 
As  soon  as  we  begin  to  camp,  I  shall  begin  to 
talk  about  those  partridges  and  shall  send  you 
a  sketch  in  our  first  picturesque  encampment. 
There  is  nothing  so  amusing  and  yet  so  pro- 
voking sometimes,  as  the  curiosity  with  which 
everybody  watches  us  and  our  instruments. 
How  often  I  have  laughed  at  the  question 
whether  my  Barometer  was  a  gun  or  a  spy- 


44          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

glass  or  a  trumpet.  We  are  everywhere  treated 
with  attention  and  politeness,  though  there  is 
no  business  which  more  requires  tact  and  care 
in  addressing  the  people  with  whom  we  are 
constantly  obliged  to  associate,  and  who  are  to 
give  us  much  information  which  we  need.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH 

June  28,  1840. 

I  took  tea  at  the  Governor's  house  last  night. 
He  is  a  plain  farmer,  intelligent  and  unpre- 
tending. When  we  called  first,  he  had  just  been 
creeping  under  the  barn  for  hens'  nests  —  and, 
of  course,  presented  quite  an  ungovernorlike 
air.  .  .  . 

The  difference  between  that  part  of  the  state 
which  lies  on  the  river  and  the  interior  is  as- 
tonishing. Go  ten  miles  back  into  the  coun- 
try, and  you  meet  a  different  order  of  things 
entirely,  slovenly,  disgusting  houses,  and  peo- 
ple neither  remarkable  for  intelligence  nor 
politeness.  .  .  . 

One  thing  goes  hard :  that  is,  the  eternal 
repetition  of  ham  and  eggs,  the  one  article  of 
food  to  be  found  in  the  state,  breakfast,  dinner, 
and  supper.  Salt  pork  would  be  a  comfort. 

New  Hampshire  is  certainly  the  most  musi- 
cal state  in  the  Union.  Everybody  scrapes  the 
fiddle  or  bass  viol,  and  we  are  entertained  by 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     45 

all  sorts  of  music  by  night  and  by  day.  Those 
who  have  no  other  instrument,  whistle  most 
vehemently.  We  went  all  over  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege and  every  student  seemed  to  be  possessed 
with  a  musical  devil ;  such  an  intolerable  din 
of  trumpets,  drums  and  human  or  inhuman 
voices  I  never  heard  before ;  verily  the  cast- 
iron  band  at  New  Haven  was  not  to  be  men- 
tioned the  same  day.  The  students  there  are  in 
open  rebellion,  and  the  Faculty  do  not  seem 
(judging  from  what  specimens  we  saw)  capable 
of  managing  them  at  all. 

TO    HIS    SISTER   ELIZABETH 

LOWER  GILMANTON,  N.  H.,  July  26,  1840. 

.  .  .  Unless  our  plans  are  altered,  a  thing  very 
likely  to  happen,  I  shall  be  among  the  White 
Hills  on  the  I4th  of  next  month.  For  the  last 
fortnight  Mr.  Williams  and  myself  have  been 
engaged  in  investigating  the  shores  and  numer- 
ous islands  which  "gem  the  bosom"  of  Lake 
Winnipisiogee.  We  made  Centre  Harbor  our 
headquarters,  and  thence  took  a  boat  and  boat- 
men and  spent  several  days  in  cruising  among 
the  islands,  camping  at  night,  and  finding  our 
food'from  the  abundance  of  game  and  fish  on 
the  Lake.  We  live  as  comfortably  and  much 
more  pleasantly  in  camp  than  in  a  house,  and 
though  one  night  when  we  were  out  it  rained 


46          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

violently,  it  never  disturbed  our  slumbers.  The 
scenery  of  the  Lake  is  beyond  comparison 
beautiful,  especially  if  it  is  seen  as  we  saw  it. 
The  first  night  we  pitched  our  tent  on  the  is- 
lands, I  shall  never  forget.  We  had  selected  a 
bold  shore  overlooking  the  Lake,  just  on  the 
edge  of  a  dark  wood.  Here  in  the  strong  light 
of  our  camp-fire  glistened  our  snow-white  tent 
while  around  it  were  gathered  our  men,  whose 
scarlet  and  green  blankets,  as  they  stood  in 
various  attitudes,  formed  a  picturesque  group. 
Before  us  was  the  Lake,  stretching  miles 
around,  with  island  on  island  vanishing  in  the 
distance,  while  over  all,  the  full  moon,  just  ris- 
ing from  the  water,  with  a  cloudless  sky,  threw 
a  pillar  of  light  over  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Never  in  my  life  have  I  beheld  a  scene  which 
could  compare  with  this  in  romantic  beauty. 
From  one  of  the  islands  which  rises  high  and 
abruptly  from  the  Lake,  you  have  an  enchant- 
ing view  of  the  Lake  and  its  islands,  enclosed 
in  an  amphitheatre  of  mountains.  One  of  these 
islands,  whose  fanciful  appearance  struck  me, 
I  proposed  to  name ;  and  boatmen  and  neigh- 
bors seeming  pleased  with  the  idea,  and  promis- 
ing to  spread  abroad  the  fame  thereof,  I  duly 
named  it  on  the  spot  as  Elizabeth  Island.  I 
will  send  you  a  sketch  of  it  when  I  write  on 
paper  which  is  not  ruled.  .  .  . 


THE  NEW  HAMPSHIRE  SURVEY     47 

.  .  .  Father  has  not  written  me  for  a  long 
time,  but  I  intend  to  write  him  to-day  a  letter 
which  will  draw  tears  from  eyes,  I  expect,  or 
in  other  words,  a  real  dunning  letter.  Oh !  it 's 
bad  business,  this  working  for  nothing  and 
finding  one's  self.  Good-bye,  you  and  Sarah 
must  both  write  immediately — now  won't  you? 
—  or  I  shan't  hear  from  you  for  more  than  a 
month. 

The  field  work  of  a  geological  survey  can 
go  on  only  during  the  warmer  part  of  the  year ; 
the  approach  of  winter,  therefore,  drove  Whit- 
ney back  to  the  laboratory  of  Dr.  Jackson. 

TO  HIS  FATHER 

BOSTON,  November  7,  1840. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  ordered  while  at  Phila- 
delphia the  works  of  Berzelius  and  Rose,  the 
two  most  important  standard  works  in  Chemis- 
try, which  it  is  necessary  for  every  chemist  to 
have  by  him  constantly  for  reference.  I  suppose 
they  have  arrived  by  this  time  at  Philadelphia 
and  I  should  like  to  send  for  them  as  soon  as 
possible.  They  will  cost  about  $37.  I  wish  also 
to  have  an  overcoat  ...  to  keep  out  the  rheu- 
matism and  to  conceal  a  dirty  coat  in  my  walks 
to  and  fro  for  exercise,  my  cloak  not  being  thick 
enough  for  Boston  winter  weather.  Cost  thereof 


48          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

about  $30.  These  are  all  the  wants,  except  ne- 
cessary expenses,  which  I  shall  have  for  some 
time.  If  you  can  spare  the  money  I  shall  be 
glad  to  have  it  as  soon  as  possible. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

J.  D.  W.  Jr. 

I  am  at  work  as  though  every  day  might  be 
the  last  I  shall  have  to  acquire  a  knowledge 
of  Analytical  Chemistry. 

TO    HIS    SISTER    ELIZABETH,    TEACHING    IN 
GEORGIA 

BOSTON,  February  25,  1841. 

MY  DEAR  SISTER,  —  There  is  nothing  like 
distance  to  lend  enchantment  to  the  view,  it 
seems  with  you,  for  you  actually  condescend 
to  hold  correspondence  with  that  naughty 
brother  on  whom  you  would  scarcely  deign  to 
bestow  a  condescending  look  when  in  your  most 
honorable  presence ;  but  as  you  have  begun 
such  a  brisk  fire,  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  happy  to 
do  my  part  to  keep  it  up,  and  shall  in  return 
for  this  epistle,  expect  from  you  an  account 
categorical  and  dogmatical  of  all  your  adven- 
tures, accidents,  circumvolutions  and  perambu- 
lations, both  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  at  home 
and  abroad.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  As  for  me  myself  —  I  would  not  have 
you  for  a  moment  indulge  the  idea  that  I  am 


THE  NEW  HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     49 

shrinking  away  to  a  starved  "  menotony  "  (i.  e. 
anatomy),  or  that  my  bodily  comfort  is  any  way 
broken  in  upon.  No  —  by  no  means.  So  long 
as  the  world  turns  on  its  axis  without  upsetting 
any  of  my  half-finished  analyses,  so  long  as  I 
can  enjoy  the  fragrance  of  my  meerschaum 
after  dinner,  and  an  occasional  twang  of  the 
guitar,  without  molestation,  so  long  shall  I  re- 
main the  same  comfortable,  careless,  anything 
but  half-starved  alchemistical  looking  chap. 
But  though  the  winter's  work  takes  off  a  little 
of  the  edge  of  health  and  gives  one  a  little  too 
much  of  the  blues,  when  gay  summer  comes 
with  its  mountain  rambles  and  wild  chase  over 
the  country,  I  grow  young  and  gay,  for  "a  life 
in  the  woods  "  is  my  motto.  My  favorite  plan 
now  is  to  go  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  as  soon 
as  I  can  find  any  method  of  getting  there. 
Then  you  may  expect  to  hear  that  "the  dis- 
tinguished traveler,  Mr.  Whitney,  was  cap- 
tured by  the  Blackfoot  Indians  and  being  very 
fat  was  supposed  to  have  made  them  a  number 
of  excellent  meals  " !  [Here  follow  divers  travel- 
ers' tales.] 

.  .  .  But  of  all  the  people  for  that  sort  of 
thing,  commend  me  to  the  Bostonians.  A  lec- 
turer gets  up  and  tells  them  that  the  timbers 
of  the  Ark  may  be  still  seen  projecting  from 
Mt.  Ararat!  and  he  is  loudly  applauded;  another 


50          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

shows  the  gate  of  Heaven  as  seen  through  the 
biggest  kind  of  a  telescope,  and  they  say  how 
wonderful !  As  a  proof  of  the  present  rage 
for  lectures  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  25,000 
tickets  were  subscribed  for  to  Prof.  Silliman's 
lectures  on  Chemistry,  to  be  delivered  at  the 
Lowell  Institute.  The  number  of  concerts  and 
lectures  which  have  been  given  here  this  winter 
is  immense.  .  .  .  And  yet  although  musical 
men  are  so  liberally  patronized,  it  seems  as  if 
there  were  but  few  persons  of  good  musical 
taste  or  even  good  amateur  performers  here,  at 
least  compared  with  Philadelphia. 

I  sigh  sometimes  for  my  old  friends  who 
garnish  the  bookcase  in  the  Library  [at  North- 
ampton], but  have  to  console  myself  by  turn- 
ing over  the  leaves  of  the  "  Lehrbuch  der 
Chemie"  or  the  "Handbook  der  Chemie"  or 
the  "Manual  der  Chemie";  delightful  variety: 
bread  and  cheese,  cheese  and  bread. 

Uncle  Samuel  [Williston,  a  brother  of  his 
mother]  and  wife  are  here  in  the  legislature, 
that  is  to  say,  the  former  of  the  two.  Uncle  S. 
has  been  spending  some  of  his  spare  dollars 
in  founding  the  Williston  Seminary,  Easthamp- 
ton,  Mass.  Much  good  may  it  do  to  all  our 
ancestors  to  come.  .  .  . 

...  I  wonder  whether  the  man  who  was 
appointed  some  time  ago  to  make  a  geological 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE  SURVEY     51 

survey  of  Georgia,  has  ever  done  anything;  if 
so,  it  is  entirely  unknown  out  of  the  state.  Can 
you  find  out  by  the  asking? 

This  winter  brought  to  Whitney  his  first 
professional  success,  an  appointment  to  the 
New  Hampshire  Survey,  at  three  dollars  a  day. 
His  duties  were  of  the  most  congenial  sort :  to 
remain  in  Boston  and  assist  Dr.  Jackson  with 
his  analyses  of  the  minerals  collected  during 
the  summer.  Unfortunately,  this  work  lasted 
only  through  the  winter,  so  that  the  spring  of 
1841  found  Whitney  again  without  occupa- 
tion. His  father  suggested  West  Point,  an 
editorship,  a  course  of  lectures  on  some  popu- 
lar scientific  topic  before  the  lyceums  of  coun- 
try towns.  The  son,  on  the  other  hand,  favored 
a  trip  to  Europe,  a  voyage  to  the  Indies,  or  in 
default  of  these,  a  trial  of  his  luck  as  a  profes- 
sional analyst  in  Philadelphia.  What  he  did 
do  was  to  march  back  to  Northampton  and 
enter  the  law  office  of  Charles  P.  Huntington. 
There  he  spent  the  summer,  his  mind  on  the 
law,  and  his  heart  on  the  New  Hampshire  Sur- 
vey. 

Josiah  insisted  that  all  he  learned  of  the  law 
was  how  to  sweep  out  the  office;  but  to  his 
family  he  appeared  amply  equipped  to  enter 
the  Harvard  Law  School  and  begin  the  serious 


52          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

study  of  his  grandfather's  profession.  Toward 
Cambridge,  therefore,  in  the  fall,  Josiah  dragged 
unwilling  feet. 

It  is  difficult,  in  these  days,  to  realize  the 
plight  in  which  Josiah  Whitney  found  himself 
in  the  early  forties.  In  a  very  real  sense  all 
scientific  men  of  his  day  were  amateurs,  either 
self-taught  or  trained  originally  for  some  other 
profession.  Most  of  them,  like  Hare  and  Jack- 
son, were  physicians.  Silliman  was  a  lawyer 
who  undertook  his  professorship  at  Yale  hardly 
better  equipped  than  his  pupils.  The  practical 
necessities  of  medicine  had  developed  the 
teaching  of  analytical  chemistry;  except  for 
this,  there  was  in  America  no  such  thing  as 
professional  scientific  training. 

Here  then  was  young  Whitney's  dilemma. 
He  might  look  to  the  law  for  his  bread  and 
butter,  and  indulge  his  tastes  for  science  as 
an  avocation.  Or  he  might  adopt  frankly,  as  a 
means  of  livelihood,  the  group  of  sciences  which 
centres  around  the  meeting-point  of  geology, 
chemistry,  and  mining  engineering;  and  be 
among  the  first  of  his  countrymen  to  be  thor- 
oughly trained  for  a  definite  scientific  career. 
The  immediate  result  of  this  inner  conflict 
was  that  Josiah  Whitney,  on  his  way  to  the 
Harvard  Law  School,  got  no  farther  than 
Boston. 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     53 


TO    HIS    FATHER 

BOSTON,  Oct.  20,  1841. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  arrived  safe  and 
sound  on  Thursday,  and  on  Friday  I  went 
out  to  Cambridge  and  found  [his  classmate  and 
college  friend,  Samuel]  Fowler.  .  .  .  He  told 
me  that  the  room  which  I  had  asked  him  to 
engage  had  been  preengaged.  There  are,  how- 
ever, rooms  on  the  lower  story  which  would  do 
tolerably  well,  although  rather  too  cold  for  com- 
fort in  the  winter.  But  as  Dr.  Jackson  has 
not  returned,  and  as  I  could  not  make  up  my 
mind  to  engage  a  room,  which  I  must  keep  all 
winter,  before  talking  with  him  about  my  plans, 
and  as  I  had  a  number  of  friends  from  abroad 
in  the  City  whom  I  was  anxious  to  see,  I  have 
taken  a  room  at  my  old  boarding  place,  Miss 
Lane's,  for  the  present,  which  I  can  leave  at 
any  time,  at  seven  dollars  a  week.  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Lyell,  the  geologist, 
and  spent  an  hour  with  him  and  his  lady  last 
evening,  also  my  old  and  particular  friend 
Ely,  who  has  just  returned  from  Europe,  also 
some  four  or  five  classmates  one  of  whom  has 
just  sailed  for  Europe.  I  found  that  it  would 
not  be  convenient  to  come  in  and  go  out  [to 
Cambridge]  in  the  evening  to  attend  Lyell's 
lectures;  so  I  concluded  that  I  had  better  re- 


54          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

main  here  while  they  lasted,  say  four  or  five 
weeks,  and  in  the  meantime  I  thought  I  should 
finish  up  the  drawings  for  New  Hampshire 
which  Dr.  J.  is  anxious  to  have  completed  as 
soon  as  I  can  do  them.  He  returned  Satur- 
day evening  from  New  Hampshire,  and  will 
start  this  week  on  Thursday  for  Maine,  where 
he  has  a  mine  to  examine.  I  have  been  talking 
with  him  some  in  regard  to  the  old  subject,  the 
bothering  subject,  the  never  decided  subject  of 
my  profession.  He  says,  "Devote  yourself 
steadily  to  my  profession  and  you  cannot  but 
succeed ;  true,  the  outlay  will  be  larger  at  first, 
but  it  is  not  a  crowded  profession,  you  will  be 
sure  to  find  employment  when  you  have  studied 
sufficiently  to  have  confidence  in  yourself ;  if 
your  father  can  send  you  to  Europe,  you  will 
have  an  opportunity  to  acquire  skill  which  will 
be  almost  sure  to  repay  your  expense  and  toil." 
It  seems  to  me  more  and  more  clear  that  I  had 
better  decide  to  devote  myself  to  the  profes- 
sion which  I  have  already  advanced  so  far  in. 
I  can  hardly  think  that  it  ought  to  be  an  un- 
settled point  much  longer.  You  see  how  the 
matter  stands.  I  have  advanced  some  way  in 
the  study  of  certain  departments  of  science. 
I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  I  may  be 
successful  if  I  persevere.  Had  I  not  better 
make  up  my  mind  to  persevere  and  do  the 


THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     55 

best  I  can  ?  Can  you  not  say,  go  forward  eco- 
nomically, prudently  and  untiringly,  and  trust 
to  the  future  to  repay  your  exertions  and  ex- 
pense? Dr.  J.  would  be  glad  to  have  me  come 
into  his  family  and  work  in  the  laboratory 
whenever  I  choose,  and  as  he  has  now  a  fine 
large  room  in  front  of  the  working  laboratory 
where  his  library  and  cabinet  will  be  arranged, 
it  will  afford  great  facilities  for  studying.  I  can 
go  out  to  Cambridge  once  a  week  and  recite 
if  I  have  time.  But  first  I  have  three  analyses 
to  make,  which  I  must  do,  as  my  scientific 
character  is  attacked ;  that  is  to  say,  my  new 
mineral  is  said  by  some  to  be  not  new,  and  I 
am  anxious  to  investigate  the  matter  thor- 
oughly and  as  soon  as  possible. 

TO    HIS    FATHER 

BOSTON,  November  7,  1841. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  received  your  letter 
yesterday  morning,  and  hasten  to  reply  as  well 
as  I  can  to  the  matters  therein  discussed.  And 
first  with  regard  to  the  total  overturning  of  the 
plans  which  I  had  formed,  I  have  this  much 
to  say.  That  the  more  I  thought  of  the  subject, 
the  more  it  seemed  necessary  to  me  now  to 
make  up  my  mind  as  to  my  future  profession. 
I  had  pursued  the  study  of  law  as  far  as  I 
could  without  entering  upon  the  technical  part, 


56          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

interesting  only  to  lawyers.  The  question  then 
was,  shall  I  go  on  with  this  study  and  give  up 
science,  or  shall  I  take  hold  with  all  my  might 
and  go  on  with  my  scientific  education.  You 
held  out  some  hope  that  you  might  be  induced 
to  allow  me  to  go  on  with  this,  in  Europe.  It 
is  the  opinion  of  Dr.  J.  that  if  I  should  deter- 
mine to  adopt  this  profession,  I  could  not  fail 
of  securing  a  living ;  and  when  one  looks  at  the 
vast  amount  of  unexplored  and  useless  (because 
unknown)  deposits  of  minerals,  it  seems  that 
[there]  would  be  work  enough  for  practical, 
intelligent  men  for  a  long  time  to  come.  I  cer- 
tainly think  that  it  would  be  in  the  highest 
degree  foolish  for  me  to  enter  the  law  school 
unless  I  make  up  my  mind  to  be  a  lawyer  — 
and  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  would  be  a  death- 
blow to  all  hopes  of  success  in  science,  having 
made  up  my  mind  to  follow  science  as  a  pro- 
fession, not  to  devote  my  whole  energies  to 
that  subject  and  that  alone.  You  ask  what 
plans  I  have  after  my  return  from  Europe,  and 
wish  to  see  what  prospect  there  is  of  my  being 
at  last  able  to  lean  upon  my  own  resources,  a 
consummation  most  devoutly  to  be  wished  for. 
To  form  any  definite  plans  so  far  forward  would 
be  rather  difficult,  but  this  much  might  be  said 
—  that  I  should  have  accumulated  a  handsome 
capital  of  practical  knowledge  and  that  I  should 


THE  NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     57 

be  ready  to  offer  it  to  the  highest  bidder.  In 
what  way  I  could  best  use  it,  or  rather  in  what 
way  the  use  of  it  would  command  a  reasonable 
reward,  whether  as  teacher,  lecturer,  or  prac- 
tical surveyor,  is  at  present  uncertain ;  but 
whatever  situation  was  offered  me  or  pro- 
cured me  by  my  friends,  provided  I  had  con- 
fidence in  my  own  powers  to  fill  it  with  suc- 
cess, I  should  most  certainly  accept  it.  But 
at  present,  I  do  not  feel  the  confidence  in  my 
own  powers  which  would  allow  me  to  accept 
any  situation  of  responsibility,  because  I  know 
that  I  have  not  had  sufficient  experience  or 
opportunity  of  observation  to  enable  me  to 
pronounce  with  confidence  on  what  I  am 
called  to  give  my  opinion  on,  and  for  that 
reason  I  am  unwilling  to  force  myself  into 
notice.  .  .  . 

With  regard  to  making  a  plan  for  my  con- 
duct in  Europe,  I  should  be  perfectly  willing 
to  follow  the  advice  of  my  scientific  friends 
here,  subject  to  the  revision  of  those  scientific 
gentlemen  in  Europe  to  whom  I  should  bear 
letters.  .  .  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  first 
question  of  all  to  be  settled  is  —  shall  I  go  on 
with  my  scientific  education,  or  shall  I  give  up 
in  despair  of  success  and  try  something  else  ? 
Should  the  answer  be  "  Go  on,"  I  pledge  my- 
self, faithfully,  untiringly,  and  economically  to 


58          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

pursue  the  best  path  which  can  be  marked  out 
for  me. 

If  convenient  please  send  the  $50  this  week. 

TO    HIS    FATHER 

BOSTON,  January  27,  1842. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  cannot  too  strongly 
express  to  you  the  gratitude  which  I  feel  for 
your  consent  to  my  going  to  Europe,  and  I 
hope  that  you  will  not  think  it  from  any  want 
of  good  feeling  that  I  ask  your  attention  to  a 
few  words  with  regard  to  the  time  of  starting. 
I  must  confess  that  I  was  not  a  little  surprised 
that  you  should  say  "next  autumn."  The 
spring  or  summer  the  Dr.  [Jackson]  thinks 
to  be  a  far  preferable  time  in  which  to  start.  I 
could  find  out  what  was  to  be  done  and  learnt 
by  a  summer's  traveling,  and  where  it  would 
be  best  for  me  to  fix  myself  for  the  winter, 
whether  in  Paris  or  at  Stockholm  [where  taught 
Berzelius],  if,  as  the  Dr.  suggests,  I  could  get 
into  the  laboratory  of  the  greatest  chemist  in 
the  world.  But  if  I  do  not  go  till  autumn,  what 
business  can  I  find  meanwhile  to  occupy  me, 
what  could  I  reasonably  expect  for  three  or 
four  months  ?  My  mind  would  be  [so]  contin- 
ually occupied  with  the  thought  of  going,  that 
I  fear  I  should  hardly  take  hold  of  anything 
with  my  whole  attention.  Again,  to  go  to  Europe 


J.  D.  Whitney,  del. 


THE   FLUME 


THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   SURVEY     59 

alone  and  a  perfect  stranger  would  not  be  very 
pleasant;  but  should  I  go  next  May,  Fowler 
might  and  would  be  companion,  and  certainly 
such  a  companion  as  he  is  not  to  be  neglected. 
.  .  .  But  most  of  all,  I  shall  place  most  depend- 
ence on  the  skill  and  experience  acquired  in 
Europe  for  employment  here;  and  of  course 
the  longer  I  delay  going,  so  much  do  I  put  off 
my  expectation  of  a  final  successful  introduc- 
tion to  business  and  usefulness.  I  have  hastily 
noted  down  a  few  such  things  as  I  have  thought 
of,  and  I  cannot  but  hope  you  will  at  least  say 
what  reasons  there  may  be  to  oppose  to  them 
to  make  me  wait  several  months  longer.  I  have 
been  studying  pretty  much  all  winter  on  the 
modern  European  languages,  so  that  I  may 
have,  so  to  speak,  my  tools  ready  sharpened  to 
go  to  work  with  when  I  reach  Europe.  I  hope 
you  will  answer  this  as  soon  as  you  can. 
In  haste,  your  affectionate  son, 

J.  D.  W.  Jr. 
Dr.  J.  desires  to  be  remembered  to  you. 

The  outcome  is  not  hard  to  guess  —  Josiah 
sailed  on  the  gth  of  May.  Before  he  returned, 
the  report  of  the  New  Hampshire  Survey  was 
printed :  divers  portions  of  it  Whitney's  and 
Williams's  very  own,  in  which  they  reported, 
among  other  important  scientific  items,  that 


60          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

they  two  had  been  the  first  of  mankind  to  reach 
the  top  of  Mount  Washington  on  horseback, 
by  way  of  the  Crawford  bridle  path.  Moreover, 
there  were  seven  full-page  lithographed  plates 
of  New  Hampshire  scenery,  each  marked  in  its 
border,  «  J.  D.  Whitney  del" 


CHAPTER  III 

IN   EUROPE.     1842-1847 

SAMUEL  FOWLER  and  Josiah  Whitney  con- 
ducted their  wander-year  like  any  two  serious 
and  well-bred  young  men.  They  did  the  sights 
of  France,  Belgium,  Austria,  Switzerland;  they 
crossed  the  Alps  five  times  on  foot,  while 
Whitney,  in  addition,  made  the  acquaintance 
of  scientific  men  and  inspected  mines  along 
his  route. 

With  the  middle  of  November,  1 842,  Whitney 
left  his  companion,  and  settled  down  in  Paris 
for  a  winter  at  the  Ecole  des  Mines.  Then  fol- 
lowed, during  the  next  summer,  another  tour, 
through  Holland  and  Sweden  to  St.  Peters- 
burg and  Moscow,  thence  to  Germany,  through 
the  Tyrol  on  foot,  then  Italy  once  more,  end- 
ing with  a  winter  in  Rome.  The  spring  of 
1844  took  him  back  once  more  to  Paris  for 
two  months  of  lectures  at  the  College  de  France 
and  geological  excursions  with  Dr.  Jackson's 
old  master  and  friend,  filie  de  Beaumont.  The 
summer  which  followed,  Whitney  spent  at 
Berlin,  in  Rammelsberg's  laboratory,  working 
over  chemical  analysis. 

With  this  period,  another  member  of  the  f am- 


62          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

ily  group  at  Northampton  begins  to  replace 
Elizabeth  Whitney  as  Josiah's  favorite  cor- 
respondent. William  Dwight  Whitney,  eight 
years  younger  than  his  brother,  had  now  grown 
into  a  tall  sophomore  at  Williams  College,  a 
mighty  hunter  and  collector  of  birds,  a  bota- 
nist, and  a  remarkable  scholar  withal,  "  as  fond 
of  history  as  of  buckwheat  cakes."  The  friend- 
ship between  the  two,  beginning  as  the  rela- 
tion of  an  elder  brother  to  a  younger,  soon 
ripened  into  terms  of  equality  as  William 
Whitney  fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  student 
days  and  became  one  of  the  great  scholars  of 
the  world.  The  two  men  were  singularly  well 
equipped  to  aid  one  another,  for  they  were  as 
unlike  in  temperament  as  they  were  alike  in 
intellect.  During  more  than  fifty  years,  neither 
brother  ventured  on  any  important  act  with- 
out consulting  the  other.  This  was  the  most 
enduring  affection  of  Josiah  Whitney's  life : 
one  thing  with  another,  it  was  the  most  profit- 
able. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

PARIS,  January  31,  1843. 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER,  —  I  can  see  you  scud- 
ding round  the  corner  of  the  chapel,  the  ther- 
mometer at  o°  or  some  degrees  below  ...  or 
perhaps  plowing  your  way  through  some 


IN   EUROPE  63 


prodigious  snow-drift,  pondering  on  dog-days 
and  ice-creams.  .  .  .  And  then  that  popping 
out  of  bed  so  imperatively  necessary,  groping 
about  in  the  dark  .  .  .  for  your  lost  stocking, 
trying  in  vain  to  break  the  icy  crust  of  the 
wash-bowl,  or  puffing  with  vehemence  at  the 
spark  which  won't  set  the  pile  of  green  wood 
...  on  fire.  O  that  getting  up  in  the  morn- 
ing in  the  depth  of  winter  at  6  o'clock,  that 
dimly  lighted  recitation-room,  that  line  of 
half-dressed  and  unwashed  sophs !  .  .  .  I  don't 
wonder  that  your  head  is  so  full  of  your  new 
situation.  ...  I  like  it  and  I  want  you  to  sit 
right  down  and  tell  me  all  about  what  happens 
to  be  uppermost  in  your  head,  especially  your 
studies,  your  Profs.,  and  your  Prex.  What 
mathematics  do  you  study  ?  How  do  you  like 
them?  How  much  French  have  you  learnt? 
Can  you  read  it  like  a  book?  If  you  can't, 
I  seriously  advise  you  to  read  something  in 
that  language  every  day,  and  not  give  up 
until  you  have  become  well  acquainted  with  it. 
You  don't  perhaps  yet  feel  how  important  it  is. 
No  matter  what  profession  you  choose,  you 
will  be  highly  benefited  by  a  knowledge  of 
what  France  is  doing  in  the  same ;  if  science 
be  your  object,  French  becomes  absolutely  ne- 
cessary. What  would  you  think  of  a  French- 
man who  should  say  that  he  did  not  think  it 


64          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

would  be  of  much  use  for  him  to  learn  the 
English  language  ?  No  matter  what  you  read, 
read  anything  that  interests  you ;  that  is  the 
way  to  learn  a  language.  As  soon  as  you  can 
read  French  with  cleverness,  then  you  must 
begin  German  ;  this  you  will  find  a  more  dif- 
ficult language,  but  not  a  whit  the  less  neces- 
sary. You  need  not "  go  for  to  tell  me  "  that  you 
have  n't  time.  I  know  very  well  how  much 
time  the  immensely  difficult  studies  of  College 
require  for  their  committal  to  memory!  .  .  . 

I  am  here  settled  down  as  quiet  as  can  be, 
and  a  regular  student,  attending  three  or  four 
courses  of  lectures,  occasionally  dropping  in 
to  hear  Gay-Lussac  or  some  other  such  illus- 
trious lecturer;  in  the  intervals  of  time,  dig- 
ging away  at  Crystallography,  Geology,  and 
whatever  I  can  lay  my  hands  on  that  is  inter- 
esting. 

I  live  now  in  quite  the  Parisian  method, 
breakfast  at  a  cafe  and  dine  at  a  restaurant, 
sometimes  in  one  place  and  sometimes  in  an- 
other, an  abominable  way  of  living.  Eating 
one  meal  a  day  I  liked  very  well  at  first,  but  I 
am  quite  convinced  that  it  is  injurious  to  the 
health  to  depend  on  what  is  taken  into  the 
stomach  at  one  time,  to  support  life. 

...  As  for  the  internal  structure  and  work- 
ings of  French  society,  at  least  in  the  upper 


IN   EUROPE  65 


classes,  strangers  like  myself  see  precious  little 
of  it,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  highest 
classes  of  the  French  are  equal  to  anybody  in 
refinement,  delicacy,  and  education.  In  what 
little  I  see  of  their  scientific  men,  they  appear 
gentlemanly  and  modest,  which  ours  do  not 
all  of  them  certainly. 

I  could  make  another  chapter  on  the  various 
ways  in  which  a  man  may  dine  and  in  which 
a  man  does  dine  in  Paris.  Fowler  used  to 
threaten  to  knock  me  down  when  I  used  to 
hint  of  pumpkin  pies. 

FROM    J.    D.    WHITNEY,  SENIOR 
NORTHAMPTON,  May  14,  1843,  Sabbath  Evening. 

MY  DEAR  SON,  —  I  wrote  you  from  Boston 
May  ist  by  steamer  of  that  day.  ...  I  have 
now  only  time  to  give  you  the  substance  of  my 
last  letter  to  guard  against  the  possibility  that 
that  may  not  reach  you.  I  have  delayed  till 
this  time  mainly  because  I  have  been  too  feeble 
.  .  .  to  undertake  it. 

I  wrote  you  that  notwithstanding  I  found  no 
less  reason  for  economy  than  I  had  done,  I  had 
concluded  to  consider  this  as  so  extraordinary 
a  case  that  I  would  make  one  last  great  effort  — 
and  add  to  what  I  have  already  done  ...  as 
needed,  $1500,  [or  in  all]  $4000.  This  is  to 
be  understood  as  all  I  can  possibly  do;  and  if 


66          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

you  think  it  important  to  take  a  journey  of  ex- 
ploration West,  before  you  can  earn  the  money 
to  pay  the  expense  of  \\.,you  must  reserve  it 
from  this  sum,  and  let  nothing  further  fall 
upon  my  shoulders.  Since  then,  I  suppose 

it  must  be  said  that   your  uncle   M has 

f airly  failed,  and  this  throws  an  additional  bur- 
den upon  me.  Tho'  the  direct  loss,  eventually, 
to  me  will  not  be  very  heavy,  it  causes  me 
great  inconvenience  and  perplexity,  and  will 
for  some  time  to  come.  In  addition  to  this,  I 
shall  lose  probably  #500  or  more  that  I  had 

loaned  to  your  uncle  A ,  and  still  further,  he 

and  John  W are  both  likely  to  be  thrown 

out  of  business,  and  both  are  writing  to  me  to 
know  what  they  shall  do,  .  .  .  and  how  I  can 
help  them. 

In  this  perplexity,  I  ask  you  to  do  some- 
thing to  help  me.  I  ask  you  to  give  up  your 
expensive  habits,  to  let  nothing  be  wasted,  to 
dispense  with  the  expensive  articles  that  you 
would  like  to  have,  but  are  not  necessary  to  the 
successful  prosecution  of  your  pursuits.  I  ask 
you  to  relieve  me  from  the  burden  just  as  much 
as  you  possibly  can.  You  must  not  say  that  you 
are  as  economical  as  you  can  be ;  every  one  of 
your  friends,  with  whom  I  have  conversed  on 
the  subject,  agrees  with  me,  that  your  expenses 
are  much  greater  than  they  need  be  and  ought 


IN   EUROPE  67 


to  be.    If  they  thought  differently,  I  should 
think  I  might  be  mistaken. 

I  wrote  you  about  the  importance  of  securing 
and  retaining  the  friendship  of  Dr.  J.  I  found 
that  Mrs.  J.  felt  hurt  by  your  neglect,  and  on 
my  return  home,  I  met  Dr.  J.  at  the  Spring- 
field Depot  and  had  a  few  minutes'  conver- 
sation with  him.  I  thought  he  seemed  very 
much  hurt,  tho'  I  trust  you  have  not  lost  his 
friendship,  and  I  trust  you  will  hereafter  take 
such  a  course  as  to  secure  and  retain  it.  Bear 
in  mind,  how  important,  how  necessary  it  is  to 
have  friends,  if  you  wish  to  get  a  desirable  and 
pleasant  employment  in  your  profession. 

However  Dr.  Jackson  may  have  felt,  he  did 
not  let  his  sentiments  affect  his  zeal  for  his 
pupil's  interests.  He  urged  upon  the  father  the 
advantage  to  the  son  of  translating  into  Eng- 
lish, one  or  more  of  the  newer  German  works 
on  chemistry.  The  two  older  men  entered  into 
the  project  with  energy.  Jackson  selected  sev- 
eral books;  Whitney  interviewed  publishers, 
who,  to  a  man,  balked  at  the  idea  of  any  large 
work,  but  thought  favorably  of  a  small  volume. 
Finally,  the  two  decided  that  Josiah  would  best 
make  a  beginning  with  a  short  work  of  Berze- 
lius  on  blowpipe  analysis ;  and  the  father,  to 
enable  his  son  to  carry  out  his  advice,  borrowed 


68          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

and  advanced  on  the  copyright  enough  to  keep 
the  young  chemist  three  months  longer  in 
Berlin. 

TO  HIS  SISTER  ELIZABETH 

BERLIN,  May  24,  1844. 

MY  DEAR  SISTER, —  Imprimis,  let  us  rejoice 
together  over  the  new  Piano — I  take  it  for 
granted  that  it  is  a  good  one,  that  it  is  in  good 
tune,  and  that  its  ivory  keys  are  fast  becom- 
ing acquainted  with  the  ends  of  Miss  Sarah's 
fingers.  ...  Is  it  long,  grand,  square,  upright, 
soft,  loud,  tinkling,  wiry,  cottony,  plain,  orna- 
mented, mahogany,  rosewood,  or  what  is  it? 
.  .  .  Did  the  inhabitants  of  Northampton  form 
a  procession  and  go  forth  to  meet  it,  and  escort 
it  triumphantly  up  the  Rue  du  Roi  ?  [i.  e.  King 
Street]  I  should  certainly  have  done  so  had  I 
been  at  home,  fiddle  in  one  hand  and  guitar 
in  the  other.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  How  well  I  remember  when  I  first  be- 
came the  possessor  of  a  little  flute,  sixteen  years 
ago;  how  the  tears  rolled  down  my  cheeks  with 
delight  as  I  retired  to  the  barn  to  give  vent  to 
my  feelings  in  the  two  only  notes  which  I  could 
produce  on  my  instrument,  which  I  will  venture 
to  say  was  regarded  by  the  rest  of  the  house 
as  anything  but  a  magic  flute.  Hum,  I  dare 
say  that  I  enjoyed  my  own  squeaking  of  "  Auld 


J.  D.   Whitney.      Aetat.  about  26 


. — Imp 

over  the -new  Piano - 
granted  that  it 
tune,  and  that 
acquain 

. 
it  tr 

. 

• 

how  th « 
delight  as  I 

I  enjoy 


IN   EUROPE  69 


Lang  Syne "  as  heartily  as  I  have  since  the 
silver  tones  of  Tulou's  flute,  so  clear  and  sweet 
amid  the  pianissimo  of  an  orchestra  of  a  hun- 
dred masters.  Have  I  not  heard  music  of  every 
kind  and  variety,  since  I  have  been  abroad  ? 
The  last  wonder,  however,  when  I  left  Paris,  was 
Liszt,  the  pianist,  the  Paganini  of  the  piano ; 
never  did  musician  make  a  greater  excitement 
there,  and  never  was  a  reputation  more  bril- 
liantly deserved.  Who  but  Liszt  can  make  the 
piano  sing,  laugh,  thunder?  His  soul  is  in  his 
fingers'  ends,  and  he  seems  to  feel  every  note 
as  if  the  piano  were  a  living  part  of  himself; 
certainly  among  the  wonders  of  this  generation, 
Liszt  is  one. 

But  after  all,  the  piano  is  but  a  limited  in- 
strument; and  when  I  listen  to  such  a  perform- 
ance and  see  the  writhing  and  contortions  of 
the  performer,  it  seems  to  me  to  have  too  much 
the  air  of  a  tour  de  force  and  leaves  (with  me) 
an  uneasy  sensation  at  the  bottom  of  the  pleas- 
ure. I  have  never  enjoyed  any  music  abroad  so 
much  as  the  chanting  in  the  Russian  churches, 
especially  one  night  in  a  Convent  near  Moscow. 
The  Russians  are  naturally  musical.  Many  of 
them  have  delicious  voices,  and  there  is  a 
plaintive  expression  about  their  airs  which 
charms  and  softens.  Moreover,  they  spare  no 
pains  or  expense  in  the  cathedrals  of  Moscow 


70          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

and  St.  Petersburg,  and  a  remarkable  voice 
cannot  be  too  dearly  paid,  or  too  sharply  con- 
tended for  between  the  choirs  of  these  two 
cities.  The  singing  is  all  by  male  voices,  and 
to  exaggerate  the  effect  of  these  low,  wild,  and 
admirably  harmonized  chants,  sung  by  the 
clearest  and  richest  of  voices  in  the  softest 
tones,  never  rising  above  piano,  would  be  im- 
possible. I  have  heard  high  mass  in  the  ca- 
thedral at  Dresden  sung  by  all  the  artists  in 
the  city,  attended  by  an  imposing  orchestra, 
and  seen  the  elevation  of  the  host  amid  the 
rolling  of  the  drum  and  the  clang  of  the  trum- 
pet; but  the  effect  was  as  nothing  compared 
with  those  low,  soft  notes  which  filled  the 
whole  soul  with  their  melody. 

But  enough  in  all  conscience  of  music, 
though,  as  I  am  at  Berlin,  I  have  a  sort  of  a 
right  to  talk  on  that  subject.  ...  A  month 
ago  I  was  a  Frenchman,  now  I  am  doing  my 
utmost  to  make  myself  a  German.  I  have  not 
a  single  English  or  American  acquaintance 
here.  Very  few  Americans  come  here;  few 
even  pass  through  the  city,  and  fewer  still  re- 
main here  more  than  five  days.  .  .  . 

Berlin  is,  [of]  all  cities,  in  any  other  than  a 
scientific,  literary,  and  musical  point  of  view, 
the  most  disagreeable  in  Germany.  Imagine  a 
city  of  300,000  inhabitants,  in  the  midst  of  a 


IN   EUROPE  71 


vast  sand  plain,  without  a  hill  of  sufficient 
height  to  break  the  monotony  of  the  view 
within  200  miles!  .  .  .  But  then  it  is  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Court  and  the  seat  of  a  University 
which  may  well  boast  of  an  unrivaled  set  of 
Professors;  especially  is  the  corps  of  Science 
strong.  There  is  Humboldt,  the  doyen  of  scien- 
tific men,  Von  Buch,Ehrenberg,  the  two  Roses 
(not  the  white  and  the  red),  Rammelsberg, 
Weiss,  and  many  others  whose  names  are  not 
so  familiar  the  other  side  of  the  water  as  they 
ought  to  be.  What  a  grand  chance  to  study; 
a  dull  city  where  there  are  few  things  to  dis- 
tract the  attention,  learned  profs,  in  abundance, 
willing  to  impart  their  knowledge  for  a  trifle, 
no  acquaintances  to  bore  one  and  steal  away 
one's  time,  inhabitants  reputed  inhospitable  etc. ; 
what  other  city  unites  so  many  advantages? 
So  let  us  buckle  to  and  work  as  fast  as  possible 
so  as  not  to  be  discontented  that  I  have  not 
one  solitary  friend  to  converse  with,  and  that 
I  must  put  my  mother  tongue  on  the  shelf  for 
an  unlimited  time,  having  really  no  other  use 
for  it  than  occasionally  to  write  and  read  a 
letter  from  you  or  from  Father,  or  to  read  the 
Bible  which  is  the  only  English  book  I  have 
in  my  possession.  .  .  . 

I  ought  to  tell  you  about  the  famous  Expo- 
sition at  Paris,  to  see  which  I  remained  several 


72          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

days  at  Paris;  but  I  despair  of  being  able  to 
give  you  any  idea  of  its  magnificence.  .  .  .  But 
if  you  had  been  there,  you  would  have  won- 
dered at  the  productions  of  the  Lyons  looms, 
the  silks,  the  satins,  the  velvets,  etc.,  the  jewel- 
lery, the  plate,  the  potato-parers,  the  porcelain, 
the  stocking-weaving  machines,  the  elastic  and 
miraculously  fitting  corsets  .  .  .  but  stop,  for 
particulars  see  small  bills  .  .  .  suffice  to  say  that 
a  Northampton  cattle-show  and  fair  .  .  .  could 
not  present  a  more  imposing  display.  .  .  . 

I 'declare  that  if  you  let  anybody  but  Sarah 
read  this  letter,  you  will  not  conform  to  my 
wishes. 

If  Josiah  could  have  had  his  own  way,  he 
might  have  remained  abroad  indefinitely ;  but 
his  family  wanted  him  at  home.  Elizabeth  com- 
plained that  because  of  her  trip  south,  she  had 
not  seen  him  for  five  years.  William  wrote  that 
when  Josiah  went  away,  he  was  not  even  a  sub- 
freshman  and  now  seemed  likely  to  graduate 
before  his  brother's  return.  His  father,  who  had 
already  advanced  five  hundred  dollars  on  the 
copyright  of  a  book  not  yet  begun,  ordered  him 
to  complete  his  arrangements  with  his  author, 
"  and  then  make  your  way  home  as  fast  and  as 
economically  as  you  can.  ...  It  would  give  me 
great  pleasure  to  support  you  at  Berlin  longer 


IN   EUROPE  73 


if  I  could  afford  it,  but  after  my  losses  by  your 
Uncle  M 's  failure,  and  with  so  many  chil- 
dren, brothers  and  sisters  and  cousins,  that 
need  my  help  and  whom  I  feel  bound  to  help, 
and  whom  I  have  helped  so  much  already,  with 
other  losses  I  feel  poor''  .  .  . 

Home,  therefore,  Josiah  came  and  reached 
Northampton  during  the  second  week  of  Jan- 
uary,- 1845,  after  an  absence  of  nearly  three 
years. 

With  him  came  three  hundred  and  forty-one 
volumes,  additions  to  a  library  already  ample 
for  a  youth  barely  twenty-five.  There  were,  as 
might  be  expected,  all  the  more  important 
works  of  the  great  European  chemists,  Ram- 
melsberg,  Rose,  Berzelius,  Fresenius,  Liebig, 
Poggendorff.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were 
curiously  few  works  on  geology,  —  Burat  on  vol- 
canoes, a  volume  of  Cuvier,  a  handful  of  books 
on  glaciers  ;  and  besides  these,  a  half-dozen 
volumes  on  other  natural  sciences,  with  two  or 
three  more  on  mathematics.  More  than  half  the 
library  was  general  literature,  Jean  Paul,  Les- 
sing,  Uhland,  Heine,  Schiller,  Grimm,  Spinoza, 
Dante,  Machiavelli,  Boccaccio,  Madame  De 
Stael,  Racine,  —  one  could  go  on  for  some 
time  with  the  list.  If  Whitney  had  spent  freely, 
he  had  also  .spent  wisely.  There  were,  besides, 
grammars  and  lexicons  for  French,  German, 


74          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Swedish,  Danish,  Norwegian,  Russian,  Dutch, 
Spanish,  Italian,  Icelandic.  Most  important  of 
all  was  the  Sanscrit  Grammar  of  Franz  Bopp, 
whose  lectures  Whitney  had  attended  in  Berlin. 
That  book  was  an  expansion  of  mental  horizon 
to  Josiah ;  for  William  it  proved  to  be  the  call 
to  his  life's  task. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY,   AT   WILLIAMS- 
TOWN 

[CAMBRIDGE],  April  6,  1845. 

What  on  earth  they  wanted  to  locate  a  col- 
lege up  among  those  hills  for,  I  can't  conceive; 
the  most  astonishing  part  of  it  is  that  they 
find  students  to  stay  in  such  an  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  the  earth,  when  they  might  come 
down  to  Cambridge  and  become  members  of 
the  greatest  University  in  all  creation.  You 
must  know  that  I  have  advanced  a  step  in  life; 
I  have  acquired  new  honors  and  shed  immortal 
lustre  on  old  Harvard  by  becoming  a  Resident 
Graduate.  That  is  to  say,  I  signed  a  piece  of 
paper  binding  myself,  my  heirs  and  executors 
forever,  to  pay  One  Hundred  Dollars  in  case 
I  should  run  off  with  any  of  the  books  which 
I  expect  to  obtain  from  the  College  Library, 
say  an  old  Indian  Grammar  or  two  and  a  musty 
history  of  New  Hampshire.  .  .  .  Having  been 
here  more  than  a  fortnight,  I  may  consider 


IN   EUROPE  75 


myself  at  home,  especially  at  the  table,  where 
I  do  prodigious  execution  among  the  muffins 
and  baked  apples,  no  doubt  much  to  the  dis- 
may of  those  who  feel  a  deep  interest  in  the 
motions  of  my  knife  and  fork. 

There  are  seven  of  us,  three  tutors,  one  law, 
and  one  divinity  student,  with  the  Editor  of 
the  "North  American"  [Francis  Bowen],  and 
myself  a  student  of  nothing  in  particular  and 
a  practitioner  of  nothing  in  general.  A  right 
good  set  of  fellows  they  are,  and  many  a  good 
joke  and  bad  pun  circulates  with  the  fish  and 
potatoes.  (We  are  all  Yankees.)  It  is  forbidden 
to  talk  Greek  or  quote  Patagonian,  so  that,  al- 
though we  are  very  learned,  no  one  would  sus- 
pect it  to  hear  us  talk.  I  might  add  that  we  are 
strong  anti-teetotallers  —  at  least  in  theory  — 
and  that  we  consequently  are  always  betting 
champagne  and  other  intoxicating  liquors, 
which  bets  are  never  paid,  so  that  we  never 
have  a  chance  to  act  up  to  our  principles 
by  getting  under  the  table.  The  weather  has 
been  delightful  lately;  and  were  it  not  that  the 
dust  is  always  flying,  and  that  the  livery-stable 
horses  are  melancholy  proofs  of  the  unscientific 
treatment  of  undergraduates,  one  might  enjoy 
a  ride  horse-back  occasionally.  As  it  is,  I  con- 
tent myself  with  walking  into  Boston  almost 
every  day,  especially  as  Lizzie  is  there,  and  I 


;6          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

have  no  regular  business,  as  my  printer  has 
not  got  to  work  yet  on  that  Blowpipe  book. 
When  I  first  came  down,  he  said  he  would  have 
it  printed  in  Cambridge,  so  I  thought  that  I 
should  be  at  hand  to  correct  proofs  ;  but  all  of 
a  sudden,  after  I  had  moved  out  here  bag  and 
baggage  (i.  e.  trunk  and  umbrella)  he  said  the 
Cambridge  printer  was  not  the  man,  and  that 
it  should  be  printed  in  Boston.  Then  he  must 
have  it  printed  with  new  type,  and  they  have 
had  to  be  cast  and  ought  to  be  done  before 
this  time ;  then,  there  are  no  type  in  the  country 
for  printing  chemical  formulas,  and  they  must 
not  only  be  cast  but  cut,  and  there  was  a  mess  of 
trouble  and  an  expensive  job  too ;  so  I  have 
not  been  near  the  printer  for  a  week  and  think 
it  very  likely  that  he  would  like  to  back  out  of 
the  whole  scrape  if  he  could.  .  .  . 

I  expect  to  go  to  the  geological  meeting  at 
New  Haven  on  the  3oth  of  April  and  remain  a 
week,  if  I  can  get  away  from  printing  and  cor- 
recting proof  sheets;  and  I  suppose  I  shall  have 
to  return  here  after  that,  as  I  shall  not  have 
finished  printing.  .  .  .  Anyway  I  shall  prob- 
ably be  at  home  in  your  vacation,  if  it  lasts  long 
enough.  .  .  . 

You  say  you  want  some  advice  about  how 
to  spend  your  time  after  you  leave  College. 
Ask  me  for  advice,  do  you  ?  I  feel  proud,  no- 


IN   EUROPE  77 


body  else  ever  did  me  that  honor  ...  I  must 
be  getting  ancient  and  respectable.  You  must 
(to  speak  seriously)  write  me  what  your  ideas 
are  (that 's  what  Father  always  says,  when  he 
don't  feel  competent  ...  to  enter  into  the 
matter),  and  I  will  sum  up  and  give  you  my 
decision,  from  which  you  can  appeal  to  the 
common  sense  of  the  family. 

It  happened  during  the  three  years  of  Whit- 
ney's stay  in  Europe,  that  Dr.  Jackson  had 
been  exploring  the  copper  and  iron  mines  of 
the  Lake  Superior  region.  He  was  not  the  ac- 
tual discoverer  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  north- 
ern Michigan,  but  he  was  among  the  first  to 
appreciate  the  richness  of  the  deposits,  and  to 
make  them  known  to  the  scientific  and  indus- 
trial world.  Naturally,  then,  Jackson  became 
consulting  expert  for  several  mining  companies, 
a  service  for  which  he  exacted  twenty  dollars 
a  day,  half  in  advance.  The  less  attractive  por- 
tions of  this  highly  profitable  work,  Jackson 
was  able  to  throw  in  the  way  of  his  pupil;  who 
in  consequence,  after  "Betsey  on  the  Blow- 
pipe" was  finished,  spent  July,  August,  and 
September  in  the  field,  as  geologist  for  the  Isle 
Royale  Copper  Company. 

Mining  on  ,a  large  scale  and  by  any  other 
than  primitive  methods  was  then  a  new  indus- 


78          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

try  in  the  United  States.  Jackson,  therefore, 
continually  urged  his  clients  to  send  to  the 
mines  of  Saxony  and  the  Harz  for  skilled  work- 
men and  furnace  masters.  Hardly  less  continu- 
ally did  Jackson  recommend  Whitney  for  the 
commission.  Besides  this,  Jackson  was  consult- 
ing chemist  for  the  Cocheco  calico  print-works 
of  Dover,  New  Hampshire,  and  was,  therefore, 
in  a  position  to  pay  well  for  exclusive  informa- 
tion as  to  German  cotton  cloths.  This  also  he 
turned  over  to  Whitney;  and  between  the  two 
commissions,  with  some  added  help  from  his 
father,  Josiah  went  abroad  once  more,  in  De- 
cember of  1845. 

From  Berlin,  where  he  had  been  since  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  in  the  laboratory  of 
Heinrich  Rose,  he  wrote  to  his  brother  William, 
now  clerk  in  their  father's  bank  at  Northamp- 
ton. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

April 25,  1846. 

You  do  not  tell  me  how  you  like  the  Bank, 
or  what  your  plans  are  about  continuing  there. 
It  seems  that  you  have  quite  given  up  the  idea 
of  studying  medicine.  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
just  what  your  ideas  are  and  what  you  think 
Father's  wishes  and  expectations  are,  in  regard 


IN   EUROPE  79 


to  this  important  matter.  Of  course  my  first 
object  will  be,  as  soon  as  I  return,  to  do  all  I 
can  to  have  you  enjoy  any  advantages,  which 
you  may  wish,  in  carrying  out  your  education. 
If,  as  you  proposed,  you  wish  to  devote  your- 
self to  the  study  of  Philology,  and  take  a  Pro- 
fessorship, you  must  come  out  here  and  remain 
at  least  three  years.  I  only  wish  that  you  could 
come  out  while  I  am  here,  so  that  I  could  see 
you  fairly  started  in  your  course  of  study,  and 
I  do  not  see  why  it  is  impossible.  My  plans 
are,  to  go  to  New  York,  as  soon  as  I  get  through 
here,  and  open  a  laboratory,  where  I  have  good 
reason  to  believe  I  can  "  do  a  handsome  busi- 
ness " ;  that  is  to  say,  if  I  can  condescend  to  a 
little  quackery  to  start  a  name  and  a  reputa- 
tion. 

I  should  much  prefer  Boston  to  any  other 
city  as  a  residence,  but  there  seems  to  be  little 
chance  for  me  there.  Boston  has  a  much  more 
refined  and  literary  society  than  New  York, 
and  it  is  the  only  city  in  America  where  any- 
thing of  any  account  is  done  for  science,  and 
where  there  is  anything  like  a  body  of  zealous 
naturalists.  I  suppose  I  should  be  run  after 
for  a  Professorship,  if  I  had  studied  at  Gies- 
sen,  as  it  seems  to  be  a  settled  point  that  no 
young  man  can  be  expected  to  know  anything 
of  chemistry,  unless  he  has  studied  with  Liebig ; 


8o          JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

while  the  truth  is,  that  any  one  who  goes  there 
and  does  not  afterwards  correct  the  bad  habits 
acquired  there,  in  some  other  laboratory,  is  al- 
most unfitted  for  doing  any  thing  in  Chem- 
istry. No  doubt  Liebig  is  a  remarkable  man, 
who  has  done  much  for  organic  Chemistry, 
not  to  speak  of  his  having  quarreled  with  all 
the  Chemists  in  Europe ;  but,  that  his  genius 
can  communicate  itself  to  his  pupils  by  his 
merely  looking  at  them  once  a  day,  I  do  not 
believe.  It  must  be  a  curious  sort  of  place 
where  fifty  or  more  chemists  dine  together, 
and  discuss  the  last  new  Liebigschen  theories 
with  Sauer  Kohl  and  Bairisch  Bier  ad  libitum. 

Still,  Liebig  had  the  best  teaching  labora- 
tory outside  of  Paris ;  and  there  Whitney 
repaired  for  the  winter  of  1847.  There,  too, 
began  his  lifelong  friendship  with  the  great 
chemist,  Wolcott  Gibbs. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

GIESSEN,  January  26,  1847. 

You  know  by  my  last  letter  to  Father,  that  I 
came  on  to  Giessen  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Semester,  and  you  will  have  to  take  my  word 
for  it,  that  I  have  been  working  from  morning 
to  night  ever  since,  excepting  now  and  then 
an  occasional  breath  of  fresh  air  on  Saturday 


IN   EUROPE  81 


afternoons.  One  day  is  so  much  like  another, 
that  if  I  give  you  a  description  of  one,  it  will 
answer  for  all ;  and  you  will  be  able,  by  allow- 
ing for  difference  of  longitude,  at  any  time  to 
give  a  pretty  good  guess  as  to  what  I  am  doing. 
I  try  desperately  hard  to  get  up  at  six  o'clock, 
at  which  time  I  am  always  awakened  by  the 
servant-maid  as  she  comes  up  to  make  the 
fire ;  if  the  thermometer  is  much  below  zero,  I 
think  about  it  so  long,  that  it  sometimes  gets 
to  be  seven  before  I  am  fairly  on  my  legs.  At 
seven  precisely,  coffee  is  ready,  down  to  which 
I  sit,  generally  with  Berzelius  in  my  hand. 
The  breakfast  consists  of  coffee  with  the  in- 
evitable two  brodchen,  which  are  of  the  kind 
and  size  which  the  apothecaries  might  well 
sell  for  eye  stones.  While  eating  them,  I  think 
of  oysters  and  fried  pudding  on  alternate  morn- 
ings, and  so,  with  the  aid  of  a  little  imagination, 
get  on  very  well.  As  I  am  thus  engaged,  in 
comes  the  Stiefelputzer  with  his  invariable 
"  Guten  morchen,  Herr  Doctor  "  (all  Chemists 
here  are  ex-officio  Doctors,  I  suppose),  makes 
his  report  on  the  weather,  which  is  generally 
"fiirchtbar  kalt,"  or  "  schauderhaft  nass,"  and 
vanishes  after  a  feeble  effort  to  make  the  boots 
shine  with  a  composition  unknown  to  Day  & 
Martin,  and. a  few  speculations  as  to  the  many 
colored  spots  in  the  unmentionables. 


82          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Breakfast  over  and  boots  on,  I  rush  for  the 
laboratory,  and  generally  manage  to  be  the  first 
there.  Here  we  work  until  dinner  time,  half-past 
twelve,  when  we  all  march  into  town  together, 
and  dine;  back  again  to  the  laboratory,  work 
till  six,  home,  a  cup  of  tea,  study  and  write  till 
eleven  or  twelve,  tumble  into  bed  and  sleep 
like  a  log  till  the  next  day's  work  commences 
again.  One  night  in  a  week,  a  few  of  us  come 
together  and  discuss  matters  and  things  in 
general,  drink  a  friendly  cup  of  tea,  play  a 
quiet  game  of  chess  or  whist,  and  make  up  for 
six  evenings  of  quiet  and  hard  work  by  one  of 
good  hearty  fun.  We  have  some  good  fellows 
here  in  the  laboratory  among  the  numerous 
specimens  of  all  lands  and  nations,  dialects  and 
tongues,  chemists  of  all  sorts ;  for  ours  is  the 
laboratory  where  Professors  and  Doctors  are 
manufactured  to  order.  There  is  nothing  which 
does  not  get  hauled  over  the  coals  with  us. 
Gibbs  and  I  are  working  at  sheep's  bile  and  a 
new  substance  obtained  by  subjecting  the  flesh 
of  an  old  horse  to  a  fusion  with  caustic  pot- 
ash. Our  next  neighbor  regales  us  with  the 
odor  proceeding  from  a  quantity  of  eggs  in  a 
very  advanced  state  of  decomposition,  dried 
blood,  etc. ;  another  has  the  monopoly  of  all  the 
eyes  of  the  animals  slaughtered  in  the  village ; 
another  has  a  quantity  of  very  strong  cheese, 


IN   EUROPE  83 


out  of  which  he  is  getting  all  sorts  of  curious 
things ;  and  so  through  the  whole  forty  or  less 
of  us  —  and  such  a  mingled  mass  of  odors  as 
rises  up  from  the  laboratory,  it  is  well  that  it 
is  a  good  distance  from  the  town,  or  the  inhab- 
itants would  have  risen  up  and  driven  us  out, 
long  ago.^ 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  work  done  here,  and 
a  great  deal  of  money  spent  in  a  year,  in  all 
the  investigations  which  are  carried  on.  The 
Professor  himself  spends  a  large  amount  on  his 
own  work,  and  has  a  special  assistant  to  carry 
out  his  analyses,  etc.,  for  him,  besides  the  two 
who  have  the  general  oversight  and  care  of 
the  laboratory.  The  Professor  generally  comes 
round  and  speaks  with  each  of  us,  both  morn- 
ing and  afternoon,  enquires  what  we  are  doing 
and  gives  his  advice  gratis.  At  first  his  ways 
and  manner  did  not  strike  me  very  pleasantly, 
but  now  I  do  not  mind  so  much  about  him,  as 
I  did  at  first.  He  has  a  terribly  sharp  eye,  with 
which  he  bores  you  through  and  through, 
when  he  speaks  to  you,  and  all  together  he  is 
a  man  whose  whole  appearance  is  one  which 
commands  and  interests.  I  should  want  to  be 
here  a  long  time  to  fathom  his  character.  Out 
of  the  laboratory  I  do  not  know  a  soul  in  the 
town.  The  people  in  whose  house  I  live,  I 
never  see,  though  I  am  told  they  are  a  very 


84          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

good  sort  of  folk.  Every  now  and  then  I  hear 
a  piano  going  on  downstairs,  from  which  I  con- 
clude there  must  be  women-kind  about,  though 
I  see  nothing  of  them  except  a  very  stupid 
Made  hen  t  who  almost  tires  me  out  by  her  awk- 
wardness and  sluttishness.  I  have  not  been 
able,  to  this  day,  to  teach  her  how  to  fill  and 
trim  my  study  lamp,  which  she  still  looks  at  with 
very  much  the  same  feeling  of  awe  and  aston- 
ishment that  a  small  boy  with  us  does  on  a  big 
steam  engine,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  .  .  . 

Think  of  a  town  of  10,000  inhabitants  and  no 
newspaper,  no  bank  and  no  banker,  no  public 
amusements  of  any  kind  whatever,  and  every 
other  man  a  Rath  !  German  from  top  to  bot- 
tom. The  situation,  however,  makes  up  for  all ; 
it  must  be  beautiful  in  summer  —  to  be  sure, 
that  does  not  help  me  much,  being  only  here 
in  winter. 

There  are  several  curious,  conical,  volcanic- 
looking,  basalt  hills  around  within  a  mile  or 
two,  crowned  with  the  remains  of  extensive  and 
famous  old  strongholds,  real  castles  of  the 
feudal  ages,  with  their  solid  walls  and  high 
towers,  around  and  under  which  clustered  the 
inhabitants  in  their  cottages  for  protection,  on 
the  sides  of  the  hill,  in  the  most  picturesque 
and  curious  way.  Then  the  geology  of  the 
country  round  is  interesting  and  there  is  much 


IN   EUROPE  85 


here  which  puts  me  in  mind  of  the  valley  of 
the  Connecticut:  the  same  rocks  and  some- 
thing the  same  contour  of  the  hills.  The  valley 
of  the  Lahn  all  the  way  down  to  Coblenz  is 
said  to  be  charming.  Only  think !  if  it  were 
summer,  what  a  nice  thing  it  would  be  to  tramp 
away  for  a  week  or  two  and  leave  the  old  horse 
to  take  care  of  himself,  and  cruise  up  and 
down  the  Rhine,  among  the  Castles  and  Vine- 
yards. But  it  is  winter  and  such  a  winter !  first 
of  all  rain,  then  rain  —  snow — thaw;  snow — 
thaw — rain.  One  day  in  December  we  caught 
a  few  inches  of  snow,  whereupon  we  started  up 
a  sleigh-ride,  and  drove  off  to  Marburg  [about 
seventeen  miles]  to  visit  Professor  Bunsen;  be- 
fore night,  it  began  to  rain  "what  you  call" 
pitchforks,  and  we  had  the  satisfaction  of  com- 
ing home  on  bare  ground.  Then  came  a  cold 
snap,  and  the  thermometer  actually  went  down 
to  some  —15  Reaumur  [two  below  zero  Fah- 
renheit], and  what's  more,  hovered  about  that 
point  for  nearly  a  month ;  then  we  had  some 
pretty  good  skating  (by  the  way,  they  under- 
stand harnessing  skates  better  than  we  do). 
Last  Friday,  the  snow  fell  about  eight  inches, 
and  a  capital  article  for  snow-balling,  and  such 
a  time  as  we  did  have !  Never  did  schoolboys 
so  bepelt,  bespatter,  bedaub,  so  besnow  each 
other,  as  did  the  grave  and  reverend  doctors 


86          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

of  the  Giessen  laboratory.  We  got  all  the  ma- 
chines on  runners  that  we  could  find  in  the 
village  and  drove  to  Wetzlar  [about  seven 
miles  away]  ;  at  every  village  on  the  way  we 
fought  a  pitched  battle,  set  the  village  into  an 
uproar,  frightened  all  the  old  women  and  cats 
out  of  their  senses,  and  cut  up  such  capers  as 
boys  crazy  for  fun  are  wont  to  do.  "  Die 
Schlacht  bei  Dudenhofen  "  (the  next  village  to 
Giessen)  will  be  as  memorable  in  the  annals  of 
the  town  as  that  one  which  General  Taylor  is 
going  to  fight  with  the  Mexicans,  and  which 
we  have  been  expecting  to  hear  of  by  every 
steamer,  for  the  last  twelve  months.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  that  you  have  taken  hold  of 
Swedish;  you  will  not  have  been  long  in  ex- 
hausting my  library  in  that  department.  If  you 
have  read  all  the  Arsberattelser  through,  you 
shall  have  two  new  ones  to  read,  when  I  get 
home.  In  the  meantime  don't  forget,  that  if 
you  are  coming  to  Europe,  French  is  the  most 
important  language,  and  you  must  be  able  to 
speak  it  fluently. 

FROM  J.  D.  WHITNEY,  SENIOR 

NORTHAMPTON,  April  23,  1847. 

You  must  hurry  home  to  be  here  before  our 
family  is  entirely  broken  up.  Come  prepared 
for  great  events.  It  is  as  true  as  strange,  that 


IN   EUROPE  87 


Elizabeth  and  Sarah  are  both  engaged /  The 
former  to  Mr.  Putnam,  a  forwarding  merchant 
at  Milwaukee,  the  latter  to  Rev.  R.  C.  Learned 
of  New  London,  a  young,  unsettled  minister. 
Both  within  a  week  of  each  other.  .  .  . 

With  his  return  to  Northampton  early  in 
May  and  the  weddings  of  his  two  sisters,  the 
period  of  Josiah  Whitney's  education  comes  to 
an  end.  Thanks  in  about  equal  measure  to  his 
father's  generosity  and  to  his  own  industry, 
there  was  no  better  trained  young  man  of  sci- 
ence in  the  country. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY.     1847-1850 

THE  famous  copper  district  of  Lake  Superior 
begins  at  the  tip  of  Keweenaw  Point  where  the 
Upper  Peninsula  of  Michigan  makes  out  into 
the  lake,  and  extends  in  a  narrow  band  paral- 
lel with  the  shore,  some  hundred  and  twenty 
miles  southwest  to  the  border  of  Wisconsin. 
The  metal-bearing  strata  dip  toward  the  north, 
pass  beneath  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and  reap- 
pear fifty  miles  away  on  the  other  side  of  the 
great  trough,  on  Isle  Royale.  There  is  copper 
also  on  the  Canadian  side  both  of  Lake  Superior 
and  Lake  Huron.  Southeast  of  this  copper 
belt,  near  the  middle  of  the  Upper  Peninsula, 
lies  the  iron  district. 

This  whole  region  was  an  unexplored  wilder- 
ness in  the  forties.  It  had  been  ceded  to  the 
United  States  by  the  Chippeways  in  1843,  after 
Michigan  became  a  state,  and  in  consequence 
belonged  to  the  General  Government.  When, 
therefore,  after  the  "  copper  fever  "  of  1845  and 
1846,  the  Upper  Peninsula  appeared  to  be  set- 
tling down  to  a  normal  development,  it  became 
imperative  that  the  usual  survey  of  the  General 
Land  Office,  which  divides  a  district  into  town- 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY      89 

ships  and  sections,  and  was  already  under  way, 
should  be  supplemented  by  a  geological  survey, 
for  the  laws  which  govern  the  distribution  of 
the  public  domain  distinguish  sharply  between 
mineral  and  agricultural  land.  Such  a  survey, 
in  charge  of  the  Treasury  Department,  Con- 
gress ordered  in  March  of  1847. 

The  natural  head  for  the  new  survey  would 
have  been  Dr.  Douglass  Houghton,  State 
Geologist  of  Michigan,  who  had  made  a  be- 
ginning at  the  task.  Houghton,  however,  in 
the  fall  of  1845,  while  at  work  on  the  geology 
of  Keweenaw  Point,  was  caught  on  the  lake 
in  a  snow  squall  and  drowned ;  and  the  ap- 
pointment, in  consequence,  fell  to  Dr.  Jackson. 
Jackson  at  once  offered  Whitney,  who  was 
still  with  Liebig  at  Giessen,  an  appointment 
as  a  First  Assistant,  at  five  dollars  a  day,  with 
charge  of  a  district  as  large  as  the  State  of 
Massachusetts.  Up  to  this  time  Whitney  had 
been  fitting  himself  to  become  a  chemist; 
Jackson's  offer  made  him,  in  the  end,  a  geolo- 
gist. 

Nominally  the  appointment  was  for  only  five 
months  of  the  year,  from  the  opening  of  navi- 
gation toward  the  end  of  May,  until  late  in 
October,  when  it  became  no  longer  safe  to  re- 
main in  the  wilderness,  if  one  expected  to  get 
out  again  before  spring.  For  Whitney,  how- 


90          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

ever,  still  more  chemist  than  geologist,  there 
was  laboratory  work  and  writing  of  reports  to 
fill  the  winter  months.  Altogether,  therefore, 
the  work  of  the  Lake  Superior  Survey  occupied 
him  for  three  winters  and  four  summers,  while 
it  was  fully  two  years  more  before  the  last  piece 
of  work  was  off  his  hands. 

The  main  object  of  the  Lake  Superior  sur- 
veyors was  to  discover  new  deposits  of  ore,  to 
delimit  the  region  within  which  such  deposits 
were  likely  to  occur,  and  to  record  all  the  fac- 
tors which  might  determine  the  economic  value 
of  any  mine,  new,  old,  or  possible.  In  addition, 
they  were  to  collect  specimens  of  rocks,  soils, 
and  fossils ;  to  note  the  vegetation,  the  timber, 
the  harbors  and  rivers,  and  the  promising  farm- 
ing land;  to  make  observations  for  latitude, 
longitude,  barometric  pressure,  temperature, 
dew  point.  Here,  also,  Whitney  had  his  first 
experience  with  topographical  surveying,  and 
here  he  laid  the  foundation  for  the  important 
contribution  which,  twenty  years  later,  he  made 
to  this  backward  art.  Above  all,  there  was  the 
scientific  problem,  the  geologic  structure  and 
age  of  northern  Michigan. 

The  party  varied  somewhat  from  year  to 
year.  There  were  always  at  least  two  first  as- 
sistant geologists,  each  at  the  head  of  a  party 
and  responsible  for  his  own  district.  Jackson 


THE  LAKE  SUPERIOR  SURVEY   91 

himself  kept  general  oversight,  and  watched 
the  appropriation  bills  at  Washington,  but  did 
less  actual  field  work  than  his  subordinates. 
William  Whitney  went  out  in  the  summer  of 
1849  as  botanist,  ornithologist,  and  clerk.  Wol- 
cott  Gibbs  was  also  of  the  party;  and  Charles 
A.  Joy,  Whitney's  fellow-pupil  under  Jackson 
and  afterwards  professor  of  chemistry  at  Co- 
lumbia and  editor  of  the  "  Scientific  Ameri- 
can." So  too  was  Dr.  John  Locke,  the  physicist; 
and  Dr.  William  Francis  Channing,  a  son  of 
Rev.  William  Ellery  Channing,  whom  Whitney 
had  known  in  Jackson's  laboratory  and  on 
the  New  Hampshire  Survey;  and  John  Wells 
Foster,  who  afterwards  became  president  of  the 
Chicago  Academy  and  of  the  American  Asso- 
ciation. Whitney  counted  as  an  experienced 
man,  by  virtue  of  his  connection  with  the  New 
Hampshire  Survey,  and  he  knew  the  country 
from  his  work  there  during  the  summer  of 
1845.  Locke,  an  older  man  than  the  rest,  had 
been  on  the  United  States  exploring  expedition 
to  the  Northwest  Territory,  and  on  the  first 
state  survey  of  Ohio  in  1836  and  1837.  Foster, 
a  lawyer  and  civil  engineer  as  well  as  geolo- 
gist, had  also  been  on  the  Ohio  Survey  with 
Locke,  and,  like  Whitney,  had  come  into  the 
Lake  Superior  region  with  the  rush  in  1845. 
In  general,  there  were  besides  Jackson  and  his 


92          JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

two  first  assistants,  five  or  six  other  geologists, 
mineralogists,  naturalists,  or  surveyors  on  sal- 
ary, an  accompaniment  of  packmen,  boatmen, 
and  cooks,  mostly  Indians  and  Canadians,  and 
a  varying  number  of  beginners  who  served 
without  pay  for  the  sake  of  the  experience. 

The  account  which  follows  of  Whitney's 
second  summer  in  the  Michigan  wilderness, 
and  of  the  winter  which  succeeded  it,  is  con- 
densed from  his  home  letters  to  his  brother  at 
Northampton.  In  brief,  the  entire  party  went 
first  to  Copper  Harbor  near  the  tip  of  Kewee- 
naw  Point,  where  there  was  a  United  States 
fort,  and  where  the  expedition  made  its  head- 
quarters. Thence  the  first  assistants  sepa- 
rated to  their  special  fields.  Whitney,  in  addi- 
tion to  keeping  his  subordinates  employed, 
himself  traveled  back  and  forth  somewhat 
freely,  picking  up  loose  ends  of  work,  prepar- 
ing for  work  to  come,  interviewing  miners,  com- 
paring notes  with  his  associates,  and  going 
over  old  ground  in  the  light  of  new  discoveries. 
He  took  the  western  side  of  the  district  and 
Foster  the  eastern. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SUNDAY   June  25,  1848. 

I  rode  all  night  on  Wednesday  and  the  next 
morning  joined  Dr.  J.  and  party  at  Syra- 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY      93 

cuse.  ...  I  was  not  much  fatigued  as  the  cars 
were  not  crowded  from  Utica  on;  so  that  by 
dint  of  getting  possession  of  some  four  or 
five  seats,  and  curling  myself  up  into  a  W, 
making  a  pillow  of  my  coat,  I  managed  to  re- 
main in  a  torpid  semiconscious  situation  till 
breakfast  time,  despite  the  amorous  occasional 
punches  of  the  conductor,  who  seemed  bent  on 
finding  out  how  a  man  could  manage  to  be  so 
very  quiet  in  such  a  curly  kind  of  a  position.  .  .  . 
We  reached  Buffalo  late  on  Thursday  night, 
and  I  went  to  bed,  quite  ready  to  make  up  for 
my  long  journey  by  a  good  night's  snooze, 
which  happily  even  the  rattling  of  all  the  pots 
and  kettles  ...  in  the  kitchen,  two  feet  from 
my  window,  did  not  break  up  till  exhausted 
nature  had  secured  for  herself  a  sufficient  dose. 
We  started  off  after  breakfast  for  Niagara,  as 
no  boat  left  till  evening  .  .  .  took  leave  of  civi- 
lization and  good  dinners  for  an  indefinite 
period  .  .  .  went  on  board  [the  boat  for 
Detroit],  and  were  out  on  the  Lake  soon  after 
10  o'clock.  The  boat  was  crowded  with  Ger- 
man emigrants  above  and  below,  of  all  sorts 
and  kinds.  I  never  met  so  many  ill-favored  and 
repulsive  looking  people  on  one  boat  in  my  life 
before.  .  .  .  But  to  make  up,  the  religious  war 
was  carried  on  most  furiously.  From  morning 
to  night,  there  was  a  set  of  some  twenty  in  the 


94          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

main  cabin  going  it  hammer  and  tongs ;  one 
of  whom  I  am  sure  repeated  the  whole  Bible 
through  at  least  three  times  in  the  course  of 
the  two  days.  If  the  voyage  had  lasted  another 
day,  I  am  confident  we  should  have  had  a 
pitched  battle  and  bloodshed.  Thirty-six  babies 
crying  with  most  lusty  voices  were  hardly 
heard  in  the  din  of  the  discussion ;  add  to  this 
a  temperature  of  +  96°,  and  196°  over  the  boilers 
where  our  stateroom  was,  and  you  may  per- 
haps appreciate  our  situation.  ...  I  expect 
to  leave  my  poor  perspiring  corpse  in  drops 
between  Buffalo  and  Copper  Harbor. 

[Beyond  Detroit]  boats  run  with  the  most 
desperate  irregularity,  so  that  we  must  depend 
on  [two  little  steamers]  which  run  from  the  Sault 
to  Cleveland  when  they  can  find  nothing  better 
to  do,  which  luckily  this  year  is  not  so  easy  as 
it  was  last.  .  .  .  Times  are  not  as  they  used  to 
was  in  '45,  when  all  Yankeedom  and  no  small 
portion  of  Christendom  were  hurrying  up  to 
Copper  Harbor,  and  every  boat  was  crowded, 
and  every  single  passenger  had  a  permit  in  his 
breeches  pocket  and  a  license  to  dig  out  un- 
limited wealth  from  the  bosom  of  the  El  Cop- 
perando  of  the  West.  [While  waiting  at  De- 
troit] I  shall  be  mostly  occupied  in  rating  our 
chronometers  (of  which  we  have  prevailed  on 
our  Uncle  Sam,  who  is  desperately  chary  of 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY      95 

giving  his  boys  watches  to  play  with,  to  give 
us  two),  determining  our  longitude  and  latitude, 
adjusting  and  comparing  instruments,  and 
snoozing  away  the  heat  of  the  day  to  the  tune 
of  "  Heigh  ho!  when  is  that  boat  a-coming  ?  " 
a  tune  which  I  have  drawled  out  my  share  of 
already,  I  think,  on  these  lakes.  .  .  .  You  will 
think  that  we  shall  hardly  get  to  Copper  Har- 
bor before  we  shall  have  to  look  round  for  a 
chance  to  get  back  again. 

[The  party,  after  a  week's  wait  at  Sault  de 
Ste.  Marie,  found  a  sailing  vessel  to  take  them 
to  Copper  Harbor.] 

We  had  a  pleasant  run  of  36  hours  from  the 
Sault  to  this  place  with  a  six-knot  easterly  breeze 
and  the  lake  quite  smooth,  which  I  put  down  as  a 
lucky  omen,  since  I  believe  I  never  navigated 
the  Lake  before  with  a  fair  wind.  [Professor 
Louis  Agassiz  has  a  party  in  the  region]  which 
is  now  somewhere  on  the  northern  shore  of  the 
Lake,  if  not  at  the  bottom  of  it.  They  are  some 
15  or  20  naturalists  and  Cambridge  students 
on  a  tour  of  scientific  pleasure,  and  we  arrived 
at  the  Sault  just  in  time  to  see  them  off.  We 
were  much  amused  by  their  evident  verdancy 
in  regard  to  a  life  in  the  woods.  Nobody  was 
captain  among  the  30  men  and  voyageurs ;  and 


96          JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

when  anything  was  to  be  done,  the  only  way 
was  to  put  it  to  vote,  a  precious  situation  to  be 
in,  if  overtaken  by  a  squall  in  making  a  long 
traverse.  After  being  fairly  gone  a  couple  of 
days,  when  we  supposed  them  fifty  miles  off, 
they  sent  back  a  boat  for  a  dozen  earthen  bowls, 
which  they  had  discovered  to  be  better  coolers 
of  coffee  than  their  tin  ones !  I  should  love  to 
see  them  in  camp  and  watch  their  proceedings. 

I  remained  at  our  headquarters . .  .while  all  the 
rest  of  the  crowd  went  round  and  over  the  point 
to  Lac  la  Belle  and  back.  I  had  the  chronome- 
ters to  rate,  and  some  observations  to  take  and 
calculate,  which  kept  me  busy.  The  weather 
was  delightful,  the  moon  being  full  and  the 
evenings  clear  and  cool ;  if  any  of  us  had  been 
of  a  romantic  turn  of  mind,  we  should  have  gone 
off  the  hooks  in  a  fit  of  extasy  —  especially  the 
other  night,  when  we  were  treated  to  a  brilliant 
exhibition  of  the  "  sparks  flying  off  the  north 
pole" — but  it  grieves  me  to  be  obliged  to  say 
that  some  ice-creams  which  were  manufactured 
at  the  Fort,  and  of  which  we  were  invited  to  par- 
take by  Mrs.  Hawes,  excited  more  enthusiasm 
than  all  the  moonshine  and  aurora  together. 

We  shall  probably  leave  toward  the  latter  part 
of  the  week  for  the  Ontonagon.  .  .  .  We  shall 
have  rather  a  hard  time  this  next  month,  but 
after  that  the  worst  of  the  flies  will  be  over. . 


THE  LAKE  SUPERIOR  SURVEY  97 

My  party  will  consist  of  Dr.  Gibbs  (fate 
seems  determined  to  throw  us  together ;  we 
always  passed  for  one  person  in  Berlin  and 
Giessen,  so  constantly  were  we  together,  namely 
"  Gyps-und-Vitnei  " ).  [The  two  men  really  did 
look  somewhat  alike.]  Also  Mr.  Joy  of  Ovid, 
N.  Y.,  and  three  or  four  good  men.  We  shall 
first  go  up  the  Ontonagon  and  take  another 
look  at  the  country,  see  what  has  been  done 
during  the  winter,  determine  a  few  points  as- 
tronomically;  then  to  the  Porcupine  Mts., 
measure  their  height  (which  we  could  not  do 
last  summer,  as  we  had  broken  our  barometer 
before  getting  there),  examine  one  or  two  points 
of  interest  on  our  way  back  between  the  Por- 
tage and  the  Ontonagon.  We  shall  return  to 
Copper  Harbor  in  about  five  weeks.  ...  Thence 
we  shall  take  a  fresh  start,  probably  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  Foster  and  his  party,  and  ex- 
plore south  of  the  bay  at  the  south  of  Keweenaw 
Point  through  to  the  Menomonic  River,  and  I 
presume  that  ...  we  shall  not  return  to  Cop- 
per Harbor  again.  .  .  .  Coming  back  to  Copper 
Harbor  [would,  however,]  be  an  agreeable  re- 
lief to  the  monotony  of  the  season,  and  we 
[should]  be  able  to  find  a  few  letters  and  hear 
what  has  been  going  on,  instead  of  being  shut 
up  all  summer  long  in  the  woods.  .  .  . 

Having   at   last  got  everything   ready,  we 


98          JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

started  off  under  a  pressure  of  white-ash  can- 
vas, with  three  cheers  from  a  solitary  spectator 
assembled  on  the  wharf,  about  5  o'clock  P.  M. 
last  Friday;  but  had  not  gone  far  before  we 
were  overtaken  by  a  most  violent  thunder- 
storm, while  the  rain  coming  down,  as  if  they 
had  just  finished  their  Monday's  washing  over- 
head and  were  emptying  out  the  tubs  on  us, 
soon  gave  us  the  pleasing  prospect  of  being 
wrapped  in  wet  blankets,  if  not  in  wet  sheets 
: — a  hydropathic  method  of  treatment  admi- 
rably well  calculated  for  assuaging  a  romantic 
love  of  wandering,  which  torments  some  peo- 
ple. We  soon  got  ashore  and  camped  as  well 
as  we  could,  considering  that  it  was  our  first 
night  out,  and  everything  new,  and  all  hands 
unused  to  each  other,  so  that  nobody  knew 
what  his  share  of  the  work  was.  Our  tent  was 
new,  and  when  we  came  to  pitch  it,  we  found 
that  all  the  pitching  in  the  world  would  not 
make  it  mosquito-  if  it  would  water-tight. 
For  the  flap  around  the  bottom  was  about 
three  inches  too  short  —  an  arrangement  well 
calculated  to  promote  ventilation,  to  be  sure, 
but  as  mosquitoes  were  very  thick,  we  were  de- 
cidedly opposed  to  leaving  so  large  a  crack  for 
them  to  crawl  in  at.  So  we  stopped  it  up  with 
branches  of  trees,  and  putting  no  admittance 
on  the  door  in  Indian  and  French,  we  pro- 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY      99 

ceeded  to  partake  of  a  bountiful  supper  pre- 
pared by  our  French  cook,  whom  I  had  en- 
gaged at  the  Sault,  he  having  left  his  former 
master,  because  he  had  publicly  put  salt  in  his 
soup,  I  presume.  I  am  decidedly  luxurious  this 
summer,  having  three  first-rate  men  (two  pack- 
men, one  cook,  and  three  boatmen),  and  also 
two  pleasant  companions. 

We  reached  [Ontonagon],  the  capital  of  my 
district  and  my  seat  of  government,  last  night, 
and  found  it  very  much  as  last  year — the 
mosquitoes  not  quite  so  bad  perhaps,  but  some 
other  things  worse.  The  mines  in  this  part  of 
the  country  are  nearly  all  abandoned ;  and  even 
the  farce  of  "  keeping  the  location  "  (in  a  case 
where  there  was  no  prospect  of  the  location 
ever  producing  enough  to  keep  you)  is  given 
up.  None  of  the  men  employed  by  the  com- 
panies in  this  part  of  the  world  have  ever  got 
any  pay,  such  being  the  fashion  here  from  the 
beginning,  and  still  strictly  adhered  to ;  so  you 
may  imagine  that  ready  money  cannot  be  very 
plentiful.  Yet  they  have  been  beating  each 
other's  empty  brain-cases  in,  and  making  shot 
and  bullet  holes  in  each  other,  all  about  the 
preemption-right  to  a  parcel  of  land,  which  not 
one  of  them  has  got  the  money  to  buy,  and 
which  is  not  worth  a  cent  anyway. 


ioo        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Thus  far  I  had  written  when  on  looking  at 
my  watch,  I  found  that  it  was  nearly  ten  o'clock 
—  which  was  such  an  unprecedentedly  late  hour 
to  be  up,  that  I  was  quite  frightened.  We  are 
waiting  here  still,  [with]  Mr.  Foster  and  his 
party,  for  Mr.  Hall  to  come  back  from  Eagle 
River  with  some  "tin  "...  to  pay  off  his  men 
with,  when  he  reaches  Green  Bay.  The  rest 
of  us  are  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the  pro- 
peller from  Isle  Royale,  with  two  of  the  corps, 
who  have  been  imprisoned  there  during  the 
summer.  Since  I  wrote  the  first  part  of  this 
letter,  we  have  changed  our  plans  a  little.  As 
it  stands  now  —  if  we  do  not  change  again 
before  to-morrow,  which  I  hardly  think  prob- 
able —  I  shall  take  the  "  Chippeway  "  or  some 
other  small  craft,  with  the  necessary  instru- 
ments, and  accompanied  by  Mr.  Joy,  shall  pro- 
ceed to  Isle  Royale,  to  fix  its  position  astro- 
nomically, and  measure  a  few  sections  across 
the  island  barometrically ;  in  short,  to  finish  up 
what  is  yet  to  be  done,  before  the  final  map 
of  the  island  can  be  drawn.  This  will  be  a  very 
agreeable  little  trip.  Meanwhile  Gibbs  will  take 
my  party,  and  go  on  with  the  work  where  I  was 
intending  to  go  before;  and  if  I  get  through  in 
time,  I  shall  join  him,  and  give  a  final  look  at 
the  country  above  the  Portage,  before  leaving. 
This,  however,  I  hardly  expect,  unless  the 
weather  and  wind  favor  us  extraordinarily. 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY      101 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BOSTON,  December  n,  1848. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  I  have  been  as  busy  as 
possible  ever  since  reaching  Boston,  as  Mr. 
Foster  is  here  and  we  have  had  a  great  many 
matters  to  talk  over  together.  California  is  all 
the  rage  now,  and  poor  Lake  Superior  has  to 
be  shoved  into  the  background.  We  are  al- 
ready planning  to  secure  the  geological  survey 
of  that  interesting  land,  where  the  farmers  can't 
plough  their  fields  by  reason  of  the  huge  lumps 
of  gold  in  the  soil.  In  consideration  of  all  of 
which,  I  want  my  copy  of  Duflot  de  Mofras's 
book  on  Oregon,  California,  etc.  with  the 
plates,  which  are  in  one  of  the  drawers  under 
the  bookcase  in  the  library.  .  .  . 

I  shall  drive  away  to  finish  the  chemical 
work  I  have  to  do  now  in  three  or  four  weeks ; 
and  shall  then  commence  writing  my  report, 
which  will  occupy  me  a  month  or  two  longer 
—  then  I  mean  to  have  a  vacation,  and  do 
something  dreadful  in  the  way  of  recreating. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

January  3,  1849. 

...  I  believe  I  quite  forgot  to  say,  in  my 
last,  that  I  had  moved  back  to  my  old  boarding- 
house,  No.  4  Bowdoin  Square.  .  .  .  There  was 


102        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

a  very  pleasant  room  vacant,  and  the  situa- 
tion being  so  convenient  to  the  laboratory,  I 
thought  I  had  better  walk  in  and  take  pos- 
session. So  now  I  am  very  comfortably  settled, 
and  if  I  could  get  rid  of  these  diabolical  head- 
aches, I  should  be  accomplishing  a  good  deal  in 
one  way  and  another.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  for 
the  last  few  days  I  have  slept  pretty  well,  my 
turns  of  headache  coming  on  generally  about 
8  P.  M.  and  disappearing  mostly  by  9,  or  10,  or 
n,  or  sometimes  12.  I  can't  bear  to  go  to  Dr. 
James  Jackson,  in  whose  advice  I  should  put 
the  most  confidence,  for  I  know  perfectly  well 
that  he  would  tell  me  to  refrain  from  reading, 
writing  and  thinking,  which  I  cannot  do,  at 
least  at  present.  Unless  I  am  down  sick,  I 
shall  stick  by,  and  work  a  little  at  least,  and 
trust  to  luck  to  get  better  by  and  by.  Such 
turns  do  not  generally  last  more  than  two  or 
three  months. 

There  is  nothing  particularly  new  about 
California.  One  of  my  friends  received  a  let- 
ter from  Mr.  [Robert  C.]  Winthrop  the  other 
day,  in  which  he  did  the  handsome  thing 
—  promising  to  back  me  up  with  the  strength 
of  his  influence.  I  find  that  I  have  a  good 
many  strong  friends  scattered  about  here  and 
there. 


THE   LAKE  SUPERIOR   SURVEY     103 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

BOSTON,  January  24,  1849. 

I  made  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  write  you 
last  Sunday,  but  at  the  end  of  the  second  page 
I  concluded  that  it  was  no  use  to  try  to  write 
when  one  did  not  feel  like  it.  So  I  very  delib- 
erately rolled  the  letter  up  into  lamplighters  and 
should  undoubtedly,  had  I  not  left  off  smoking, 
have  lighted  a  cigar  with  one  of  them  and  sat 
me  down  to  ruminate  on  the  mutability  of  hu- 
man affairs.  Time  is  wagging  along,  and  I  have 
been  so  busy  that  I  have  hardly  had  time  to  no- 
tice its  progress.  But  here  we  are  at  the  end  of 
January  almost  .  .  .  May  will  soon  be  here,  and 
I  dare  say  you  will  welcome  it,  hey?  .  .  . 

I  do  not  see  but  that  you  will  have  to  go  up 
to  Lake  Superior  after  all,  for  it  seems  to  be  the 
general  opinion  that  there  will  be  no  survey 
of  California  organized  this  session  at  least.  I 
don't  care  about  having  the  thing  done  at  all, 
unless  it  can  be  got  up  in  good  style,  a  regular 
scientific  exploration  of  the  whole  territory,  the 
results  to  be  published  in  handsome  style,  and 
not  on  the  filthy  wrapping  paper  which  answers 
well  enough  to  embalm  the  stale  speeches  of  the 
M.  C.'s.  I  wrote  an  article  of  two  columns  for 
the  last  "Mining  Journal"  (if  I  had  a  copy  I 
would  send  you  one),  stirring  up  such  a  survey, 


104        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

and  I  mean  to  follow  the  attack  up  in  that  jour- 
nal, in  the  "  North  American  Review,"  and 
"  Silliman's  Journal."  I  shall  begin  to  go  to  work 
in  earnest  as  soon  as  my  Lake  Superior  report 
is  off  my  hands.  That  takes  up  all  my  time,  and 
I  shall  not  feel  easy  till  it  is  finished.  I  sent  off 
to  the  printer  yesterday,  an  article  for  the  next 
number  of  the  "Journal,"  of  thirteen  pages, 
which  I  have  been  working  on  nights  and  morn- 
ings, and  at  odd  ends  of  time.  I  am  going  to  draw 
up  a  plan  of  a  survey  of  California  and  Oregon, 
and  lay  it  before  the  American  Academy;  they 
will  endorse  it  and  send  it  on  to  Washington,  so 
that  that  will  be  a  good  stepping  stone,  I  think, 
to  an  appointment,  if  the  survey  is  started. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BOSTON,  March  7,  1849. 

By  some  strange  fatality  your  letter  of  Feb- 
ruary 27th  was  only  delivered  to-day.  I  had  been 
wondering  that  I  did  not  receive  a  letter  from 
you,  and  could  find  no  other  reason  than  that 
you  were  so  set  up  by  your  success  as  a  lecturer, 
that  you  had  concluded  not  to  own  relationship 
with  common  beings  like  myself.  You  must 
never  accuse  me  of  not  thinking  of  you;  you 
would  have  to  scrabble  round  a  long  time,  I  am 
thinking,  to  find  anyone  who  loves  you  as  well 
as  I  do,  or  who  would  value  your  affection  more 


THE  LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY     105 


highly.  I  must  confess  that  I  have  felt  a  little 
jealous  of  Bumstead  occasionally,  when  he  has 
come  round  with  a  pocket  full  of  letters  from 
you,  to  flourish  under  my  nose.  You  must  not 
judge  me  by  the  length  or  quality  of  my  let- 
ters. I  am  but  a  poor  correspondent  at  best;  I 
never  had  a  genius  for  epistolary  correspond- 
ence, and  when  I  have  the  blues,  I  have  to  give 
up  entirely;  for  to  inflict  my  letters  on  anyone, 
when  I  am  in  that  state,  would  be  a  little  too 
bad.  I  wrote  two  letters  to  you  last  week  and 
week  before,  which  I  did  not  send,  because  after 
writing  them,  I  thought  them  rather  too  prosy. 
All  day  I  have  been  busily  engaged  in  pre- 
paring the  accounts  of  the  last  year,  which  are 
now  ready  to  send  on  to  Washington.  Our  cal- 
culation is  to  start  on  the  survey  June  ist.  Do 
you  still  think  that  you  had  better  go,  that  you 
are  equal  to  the  fatigues  and  exposures  of  the 
season  ?  If  so,  I  suppose  that  you  can  have  a 
place  as  assistant  sub-agent  at  $2  per  day,  or 
possibly  as  clerk  at  #3.  ...  I  should  so  much 
wish  to  have  you  with  me,  that  I  am  afraid  to 
trust  my  own  judgment  in  regard  to  the  effect 
of  such  a  trip  on  your  health.  .  .  .  The  first 
month  will  be  the  severe  one.  After  that  the 
difficulties  will  rapidly  diminish.  I  will  make  it 
as  easy  for  you  as  I  can,  and  there  would  be 
many  pleasant  things  about  [it]  even  in  the 


io6        JOSIAH    D WIGHT  WHITNEY 

worst  of  the  difficulties.  I  do  not  see  that  it  is 
possible  for  Bumstead  to  go,  as  there  will  not 
be  a  single  vacancy  into  which  he  could  creep. 
There  are  two  or  three  loafers  attached  to  the 
survey,  whom  I  should  be  glad  to  see  turned 
out .  .  .  but  the  Doctor  will  not  do  it. 

Write  soon  — don't  wait  till  you  have  time  to 
fill  a  whole  sheet,  but  let  us  have  five  cents' 
worth  a  little  oftener. 

Meanwhile,  as  if  it  were  not  task  enough  for 
the  survey  to  unravel  the  geology  of  "a  hun- 
dred thousand  square  miles  of  unbroken  wilder- 
ness, tangled  thickets,  marshes,  and  lakes,"  there 
were,  in  addition,  difficulties  at  Washington. 
Congress  was  slow  in  passing  appropriations, 
and  even  after  funds  had  been  voted,  Jackson 
could  get  his  money  only  by  "sticking  to  the 
treasury  door."  Moreover,  the  Michigan  con- 
gressmen felt  that  no  outsider  could  do  justice 
to  the  mineral  resources  of  their  state ;  and  only 
the  utmost  efforts  of  the  head  of  the  survey  de- 
feated an  amendment  to  the  appropriation  bill, 
which  would  compel  him  to  reside  in  the  state, 
have  all  the  chemical  work  done  at  Detroit,  and 
employ  as  assistants  only  "practical"  men  ac- 
quainted with  woodcraft  and  citizens  of  Michi- 
gan. There  was,  besides,  much  hostile  criticism 
of  the  survey,  much  ventilating  of  the  incom- 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY     107 

petence  of  the  assistants,  and  much  personal 
opposition  to  Jackson,  on  the  part  of  mine  own- 
ers and  men  actually  on  the  ground,  some  of  it 
at  least  from  men  whose  opinion  was  entitled 
to  weight.  Jackson  himself,  at  this  time,  seems 
to  have  been  by  no  means  at  his  best.  His  long 
controversy  with  Warren  and  Morton  and 
Wells  over  the  discovery  of  anesthesia  had  con- 
sumed his  strength  and  preyed  on  his  mind.  He 
talked  of  nothing  but  ether,  and  his  letters  to 
Whitney  on  this  topic  display  a  bitterness  for- 
eign to  his  nature.  Altogether  it  is  easy  to  be- 
lieve that  Jackson  was  a  sick  man  in  1847  and 
1 848,  stricken  with  a  touch  of  the  malady  which, 
years  later,  sent  him  to  end  his  days  in  an  in- 
sane hospital. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  disapproval  of  the  conduct 
of  the  survey  became  so  outspoken,  that  in  the 
spring  of  1849,  Foster  and  Whitney  both  re- 
signed; there  was  an  investigation  by  the  de- 
partment at  Washington,  with  the  result  that 
Dr.  Jackson  was  allowed  to  retire,  while  the 
completion  of  the  survey  was  given  over  to  the 
two  assistants. 

This  promotion,  for  it  really  amounted  to 
making  Foster  and  Whitney  each  an  independ- 
ent head  of  a  survey  of  his  own  district,  in- 
volved rather  an  increase  of  responsibility  than 
a  change  of  work.  The  two  young  men  worked 


io8        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

together  in  harmony ;  Foster  attended  to  the 
Washington  end  of  their  joint  affairs,  while 
Whitney  did  more  than  half  the  work  in  the 
field  during  the  two  additional  seasons  which 
sufficed  to  complete  the  survey. 

Several  new  men  joined  Whitney's  party  for 
the  final  summer,  among  them  Colonel  Charles 
Whittlesey  of  the  United  States  Army,  who  had 
been  topographer  and  geologist  on  the  Ohio 
Survey;  Edouard  Desor,  who  had  worked  with 
Agassiz  on  the  Swiss  glaciers ;  and  James  Hall, 
at  that  time  the  head  of  the  New  York  Survey, 
and  still  commonly  accounted  to  be  the  first  of 
American  paleontologists.  Their  work  for  the 
field  season  of  1850  was  in  the  eastern  end  of 
the  Peninsula,  especially  along  its  southern 
border. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CLEVELAND,  June  24,  1850. 

.  .  .  We  arrived — that  is  to  say  the  geo- 
logical corps,  consisting  of  Mr.  Desor  and 
myself  —  yesterday  afternoon  in  good  health 
and  spirits.  Col.  Whittlesey  we  soon  found, 
and  he  professes  a  willingness  to  join  our  corps 
for  a  short  time, —  at  least  until  he  shall  have 
received  definite  information  with  regard  to  the 
boundary  line  between  Minnesota  and  Iowa  — 
which  he  expects  to  have  to  run.  Of  course 


J.  D.  Whitney,  del. 


ARCHED   ROCK,   LAKE   SUPERIOR 


THE   LAKE   SUPERIOR   SURVEY     109 

he  and  Mr.  Desor  are  already  buried  in  the 
[glacial]  drift  up  to  their  chins  and  will  be  till 
the  boat  leaves. 

.  .  .  Two  of  us  will  probably  go  to  the  Sault, 
and  two  stop  at  Mackinaw;  that  is  to  say,  if 
Mr.  Hall  joins  us  to-day,  as  I  expect.  .  .  . 

We  shall  thus  have  two  parties  of  two  each, 
and  I  think  it  may  safely  be  said  that  they 
will  be  tolerably  strong  parties.  I  do  not  think 
we  need  be  ashamed  of  ourselves  when  we 
have  such  men  as  Hall,  Desor,  and  Whittlesey 
with  us. 

It  seems  queer  to  be  directing  the  move- 
ments of  a  corps,  all  of  whom  are  older  and 
more  experienced  than  myself !  At  least  I  need 
not  feel  ashamed  of  my  company,  as  I  did  when 
Jackson  sent  me  on  with  the  "  rag,  tag,  and 
bobtail "  of  his  party,  to  get  them  out  of  his 
way,  the  first  year  we  came  up. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 
North  Shore  of  DRUMMOND'S  ISLAND,  July  15,  1850. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  Mousing  round  in  the 
bushes  just  now,  I  came  upon  [two  of  the  men] 
frying  an  enormous  pile  of  doughnuts,  by  way 
of  making  time  pass  off  with  speed.  The  asso- 
ciation, you  can  conceive,  led  me  naturally  to 
think  of  writing  to  you,  and  of  thus  making 
use  of  a  spare  half-hour  before  dinner,  which 


no        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

might  perhaps,  otherwise,  be  less  usefully  em- 
ployed. .  .  .  The  wind  is  strong  ahead,  and  we 
are  degrades  on  a  pebbly  beach  on  the  north 
shore  of  Drummond's  Island  [near  the  upper 
end  of  Lake  Huron],  which  we  are  circumnavi- 
gating (Mr.  Hall  and  myself).  We  are  making 
a  tour  among  the  islands  of  the  St.  Mary's,  col- 
lecting fossiliferouses,  and  catching  trout. 

Let  me  see,  I  think  that  I  have  not  written 
since  we  went  to  the  Sault.  .  .  .  We  waited 
two  or  three  rainy,  easterly-weather  days  at 
Mackinaw,  where  I  tried  in  vain  to  fit  out 
Whittlesey  and  Desor  for  the  west.  Then  we 
all  went  to  the  Sault  together.  We  found  some 
difficulty  in  persuading  the  men  to  go  [up  the 
Lake],  as  it  was  late  and  they  no  longer  ex- 
pected us,  and  they  had,  therefore,  made  prepa- 
rations for  fishing.  But  finally,  by  the  promise 
of  a  few  additional  dollars,  to  make  up  for  the 
cost  of  the  nets,  we  secured  [six  men].  .  .  . 
We  all  started  in  two  boats  and  went  together 
over  to  St.  Martin's  Islands,  where  we  camped 
for  the  night;  and  the  next  morning  we  sepa- 
rated, Whittlesey  and  Desor  to  go  west  and 
examine  the  coast  and  ascend  the  Manistique 
River,  while  we  are  to  circumnavigate  in  this 
region  for  a  week  longer,  and  then  make  all 
sail  for  the  west,  and  overtake  the  other  party 
at  Bay  de  Noquet. 


THE  LAKE  SUPERIOR  SURVEY  in 

We  have  collected  splendid  fossils,  which 
are  abundant  beyond  anything  I  ever  saw  in 
this  region.  Mr.  Hall  is  in  tall  clover.  I  must 
tell  you  about  our  Saturday  night's  encamp- 
ment. We  had  been  sailing  along  until  it  began 
to  grow  late  and  saw  no  signs  of  a  spot  suitable 
for  camping,  or  a  place  where  we  could  haul 
out  our  boat,  and  we  had  thus  far  not  seen  a 
rock  in  place  on  the  Island'  [i.  e.  they  were  in 
the  glacial  drift].  Suddenly  we  descried  a  flat 
surface  of  rock  descending  gradually  into  the 
water.  As  we  approached,  I  let  fly  [a]  gun 
and  killed  eight  ducks  at  a  shot.  We  then  ran 
our  boat  upon  the  rocks,  which  we  found  to  be 
filled  with  beautiful  fossils.  We  stepped  ashore 
and  found  ourselves  on  a  level,  open  surface  of 
rock,  without  much  soil  upon  it,  but  covered 
with  the  greatest  profusion  of  strawberries ! 
.  .  .  The  next  morning,  after  breakfasting  on 
our  ducks  and  the  trout,  which  we  had  caught 
the  day  before,  we  started  out  in  search  of  fos- 
sils, which  we  found  in  the  greatest  beauty  and 
perfection,  and  which  we  literally  picked  up 
from  the  midst  of  the  beds  of  strawberries.  We 
collected  some  200  Ibs.  of  fine  corals,  etc.  in 
a  couple  of  hours,  besides  stopping  occasion- 
ally to  refresh  ourselves  with  the  ripe  straw- 
berries. .  .  . 

Mr.  Hall  and  I  get  on  very  well  together.  I 


H2        JOSIAH   D WIGHT   WHITNEY 

shall  learn  a  good  deal  of  him  in  the  way  of 
Paleontology,  a  branch  which  I  never  expect 
to  be  a  proficient  in,  in  these  days  of  special- 
ties, but  which  one  can  hardly  help  learning 
something  of,  in  voyaging  in  a  fossiliferous 
country  with  a  man  who  is  so  skilled  in  his 
specialty  as  is  Mr.  Hall. 

You  must  not  be  surprised  not  to  hear  from 
me  again  for  a  month  or  six  weeks,  as  it  may 
be  difficult  to  get  our  letters  forwarded. 

This  summer's  campaign  completed  the  field 
work  of  the  Lake  Superior  Survey.  Not  for 
five  years  did  Whitney  undertake  another  task 
of  like  sort. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   METALLIC   WEALTH   OF   THE  UNITED 
STATES.    1850-1854 

IT  was  now  William  Whitney's  turn  to  go 
abroad.  Of  the  five  years  since  he  graduated 
from  college,  he  had  spent  four  behind  the 
counter  of  his  father's  bank,  while  the  leaven 
of  Bopp's  Grammar  worked  in  his  mind,  and 
he  saved  twelve  hundred  dollars  toward  his 
emancipation  from  business.  After  his  sum- 
mer on  the  Lake  Superior  Survey,  he  entered 
Yale  as  a  graduate  student  of  Sanscrit ;  and  in 
the  fall  of  1850  went  to  Berlin  to  become  a  pupil 
of  Weber,  and  later  to  Tubingen,  where  with 
Roth  he  commenced  editing  the  "Atharva- 
Veda." 

Josiah,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  set  up  a  private 
laboratory  in  Brookline,  and  was  engaged  on 
the  analyses  of  the  survey  just  completed,  on  its 
final  reports,  and  on  various  special  papers  for 
scientific  journals.  Of  these,  he  had  already 
brought  out  seven,  all  except  one  on  chemical 
subjects,  and  together  of  sufficient  merit  to  win 
for  him,  in  August  of  1850,  his  first  scientific 
distinction,  membership  in  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Now  follow  in  rapid 


ii4        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

succession  six  more  special  papers,  four  of  them 
on  geological  topics.  From  this  time  on,  Whit- 
ney is  no  longer  predominantly  a  chemist. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY,  AT    BERLIN 
BOSTON,  November  n,  1850. 

.  .  *  Luck  seems  to  have  favored  you  highly 
and  nothing  can  be  more  satisfactory  than  the 
good  account  which  you  give  of  yourself  thus 
far.  I  shall  depend  on  hearing  all  the  particulars 
of  your  course  of  study  in  which  I,  too,  shall  feel 
a  strong  interest,  for  did  I  not  steal  from  dear 
old  Bopp  and  Grimm  many  a  lecture,  going 
away  always  with  a  longing  desire  to  turn  up 
double,  some  day,  and  set  one  half  at  work  on 
philology.  .  .  .  As  for  myself  everything  is 
going  on  as  usual.  I  have  written  our  synopsis 
and  forwarded  it  to  the  Department;  and  have 
also,  with  the  help  of  Desor,  written  an  article 
of  some  length  giving  the  general  results  of  our 
explorations.  This  we  have  sent  to  the  Geo- 
logical Society  of  Paris.  I  mean,  as  soon  as  I 
can  find  time,  to  get  up  an  article  on  the 
nature  of  the  copper  deposits  of  Lake  Supe- 
rior, for  "  PoggendorfF s  Annalen."  My  labora- 
tory work  is  going  on,  and  I  shall  probably 
have  enough  work  to  do  there  to  occupy  me  a 
couple  of  months  busily. 

.  We    tried    to   elect    Foster    into  the 


METALLIC  WEALTH  115 

[American  ]  Academy  last  Wednesday,  but 
met  with  a  Waterloo  defeat.  Jackson  was  there 
with  all  the  forces  he  could  muster,  and  voted, 
but  said  not  a  word.  I  think  that  the  unpopu- 
larity of  Bowen  and  Cambridge  in  general 
helped  a  good  deal,  though,  doubtless,  Jackson 
influenced  several  votes.  The  wonder  is  to  me 
how  he  could  not  manage  to  keep  me  out. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BOSTON,  April  i,  1851. 

I  spent  ten  days  of  the  first  half  of  March  at 
Albany,  where  I  went  as  a  witness  in  the  cases 
of  Agassiz  and  Hall.  .  .  .  The  suits  were  for 
libel,  and  brought  separately  against  Agassiz 
and  Hall,  by  a  man  by  the  name  of  J.  T.  [not 
J.  W.  ]  Foster,  the  author  of  a  ridiculous  at- 
tempt at  a  geological  chart,  damages  in  each 
case  laid  at  $40,000 !  The  chart  was  a  most 
absurd  production,  the  work  of  a  complete  ig- 
noramus, and  yet  was  recommended  by  that 
miserable  old  sneak  [the  name  omitted  is 
that  of  a  well-known  geologist],  who  had  been 

offered  a  pecuniary  interest  in  it.  With 's 

recommendation,  there  was  a  probability  that 
it  might  be  adopted  in  the  schools  of  New 
York.  To  prevent  this,  Hall  wrote  to  Agassiz, 
requesting  his  opinion  of  the  production,  and 
having  got  an  opinion  expressed  in  strong  Ian- 


Ii6        JOSIAH   D WIGHT  WHITNEY 

guage,  published  it  and  killed  the  chart  dead. 
On  this,  suits  were  instituted  against  both. 
was  the  only  scientific,  or  would-be  scien- 
tific man  who  could  be  found  willing  to  en- 
dorse the  chart.  [James  Dwight]  Dana,  [  J.  W.] 
Foster,  and  I  were  there  to  testify  as  to  its 
merits.  We  were  each  kept  on  the  stand  a  day 
(three  days  occupied  in  our  direct  and  cross-ex- 
animations),  and  you  may  imagine  that  the  chart 
was  pretty  essentially  hauled  over  the  coals. 
We  did  not  spare ;  and  the  more  they  cross- 
questioned  us,  the  more  the  truth  would  come 
out.  The  Judge  took  the  highest  ground  pos- 
sible in  favor  of  the  right  to  criticise,  and  the 
jury  required  an  absence  of  only  a  few  minutes 
to  make  up  their  verdict  for  Agassiz.  Hall's  case 
was  dismissed  by  the  Judge  with  the  consent 
of  the  plaintiffs,  as  they  saw  they  had  no  hope, 
and  we  returned  home  in  great  glee.  I  had  a 
good  opportunity  to  get  well  acquainted  with 
Agassiz  and  Dana,  as  we  were  together  all  the 
time  for  twelve  days.  Agassiz  is  a  very  fasci- 
nating man,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  like 
him,  even  in  acknowledging  that  he,  like  all 
the  rest  of  mankind,  has  his  faults  (except  you 
and  me).  Dana  is  a  "  brick  and  no  mistake." 

It  is  no  small  task  to  get  out  a  geological 
report.  There  is,  to  begin  with,  a  great  mass 


METALLIC   WEALTH  117 

of  field  notes  to  be  put  into  shape  for  printing, 
or  plotted  on  maps  and  sections.  There  are 
observations  to  be  reduced,  minerals  to  be  an- 
alyzed, fossils  to  be  described  and  pictured, 
maps  to  be  drawn  and  engraved,  illustrations  to 
be  lithographed,  of  a  sort  to  catch  the  eye  of 
the  legislator  and  make  straight  the  path  of 
appropriation  bills.  Appropriation  bills,  too, 
have  to  be  watched,  that  paper  and  bindings 
may  not  suffer  from  a  spasm  of  economy.  All 
this  successfully  out  of  the  way,  printer  and  en- 
graver and  binder  must  be  overseen,  to  make 
sure  that  the  government  is  not  cheated  be- 
yond custom.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  chief 
geologist  must  edit  or  rewrite  the  reports  of 
his  subordinates,  and  in  addition  prepare  his 
own  text,  a  hundred  or  two  large  printed  pages 
bristling  with  facts. 

The  Lake  Superior  report  was  Whitney's 
first,  and  he  took  pains  with  it.  "  The  illustra- 
tions," he  wrote  his  brother,  "are  the  best 
things  of  the  kind  which  have  been  got  up  in 
this  country  as  yet.  There  will  be  twenty 
plates  of  scenery  [his  own  drawings],  ten  of 
fossils,  besides  maps,  sections,  and  wood-cuts." 
There  were  two  volumes,  one  on  the  copper 
district,  the  other  on  the  iron.  Desor  did  the 
chapters  on  the  glacial  drift ;  Hall  the  fossils. 
Whitney  himself  wrote  most  of  the  general 


Ii8        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

geology,  though  Foster  was  equally  responsible 
for  the"opinions.  Between  them,  they  reversed 
some  of  Jackson's  important  conclusions ;  and 
advanced  several  new  ones  of  their  own,  among 
them  the  opinion,  radical  but  quite  correct, 
that  the  So-called  "  new  world "  is  really  the 
older  of  the  two.  Oddly  enough,  in  spite  of 
Desor's  connection  with  Agassiz,  the  report 
rather  opposed  than  supported  the  true  theory 
of  the  drift  which  Agassiz  had  been  advocat- 
ing for  some  ten  years.  Strangely,  too,  since 
Whitney  had  been  in  a  way  a  pupil  of  Lyell, 
the  more  speculative  portions  of  the  report 
have  not  a  little  to  say  of  electric  earth  currents, 
primeval  oceans  of  hot  water,  metallic  vapors, 
vast  earthquake  waves,  and  the  like  weird  ma- 
chinery of  pre-Lyellian  geology.  Geology  in 
the  fifties  was  still  more  than  half  cosmology. 

The  manuscript  for  the  second  volume  of 
this  report  was  ready  for  the  printer  in  the 
spring  of  1851;  and  in  the  following  summer, 
Whitney  indulged  himself  in  a  trip  abroad  and 
a  visit  to  his  brother.  It  was  a  pleasure  trip  — 
London  and  a  meeting  of  the  British  Associa- 
tion ;  Paris ;  the  Rhine ;  Switzerland,  where 
once  again  fate  threw  him  into  the  company 
of  his  friend  Wolcott  Gibbs. 

The  letters  between  the  two  brothers  begin 
again  with  Josiah's  return  to  America. 


METALLIC   WEALTH  119 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BROOKLINE,  October  21, 1851. 

I  think  that  the  real  reason  why  the  Dom 
of  Milan  made  such  an  impression  on  you,  was 
that  it  was  so  entirely  unexpected.  It  is  a  glo- 
rious work  but  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
Kolner  Dom.  That,  of  all  the  material  works 
of  the  human  mind,  has  made  the  deepest  and 
most  ineffaceable  impression  on  me.  I  have  seen 
it  at  four  different  visits  to  Koln  and  stud- 
ied it  thoroughly.  It  is  the  grand  realization  of 
a  sublime  idea  carried  out  in  full  and  entire 
harmony  with  itself  —  it  is  a  whole,  a  unity.  It 
is  in  architecture,  what  one  of  Beethoven's  sym- 
phonies is  in  music,  and  the  two,  though  so 
different,  have  yet  the  same  effect  on  me.  I  was 
delighted  that  it  should  have  made  on  you  so 
strong  an  impression.  The  cathedral  at  Milan 
is  more  dazzling  at  first  sight,  more  eblouissant, 
more  gorgeous;  but  it  lacks  the  divine  harmony, 
the  oneness  which  makes  that  of  Cologne  the 
masterpiece  of  art. 

.  .  .  My  dear  Will,  some  things  may  have  oc- 
curred while  we  were  together  to  mar  the  pleas- 
ure of  our  journey  somewhat,  but  these  I  shall 
forget,  and  hope  that  you  will,  and  that  you 
will  forgive  me  if  I  was  occasionally  rather  im- 
patient and  overbearing.  I  am  sure  that  I  shall 


120        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

always  remember  the  short  time  we  spent  to- 
gether with  infinite  pleasure,  and  shall  look 
forward  to  other  similar  days  of  enjoyment.  . . . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

PHILADELPHIA,  November  4,  1851. 

Here  we  are,  settled  down  as  quietly  as  if  we 
lived  here  .  .  .  with  a  good  wood  fire  to  toast  our 
shins  by, in  this  cold,  rainy,  and  stupid  weather; 
and  calmly  waiting  the  printer's  good  pleasure 
to  furnish  us  with  proof.  We  are  in  the  hands  of 
a  man  who  seems,  in  the  opinion  of  all  who  know 
him,  to  be  a  great  scamp.  He  has  a  miserable 
little  concern  of  an  establishment,  and  having 
taken  the  contract  lower  than  he  can  afford  to 
doit,  he  expects  to  make  himself  good  by  cheat- 
ing Uncle  Sam  in  various  ways.  He  has  some 
motives  for  printing  this  work  well,  and,  having 
new  type  and  only  a  hand  press,  we  cannot 
come  off  very  badly.  .  .  . 

Yesterday  and  Sunday  I  spent  at  Pottsville 
in  the  great  anthracite  coal  basin,  having  run 
up  there  Saturday  afternoon  (92  miles)  to  see 
Desorand  Rogers  [H.  D.  Rogers,  State  Geolo- 
gist of  Pennsylvania].  Rogers  was  excessively 
polite  and  attentive,  and  drove  me  all  around 
to  the  most  interesting  localities  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. It  is  a  remarkable  region  both  geologi- 
cally and  economically.  Rogers  has  to  finish  the 


METALLIC  WEALTH  121 

field  work  of  the  survey  next  year,  and  the  work 
is  to  be  published  in  two  quarto  volumes  in  the 
best  style.  It  will  be  the  most  creditable  contri- 
bution of  this  country  to  geological  science. .  . . 

As  for  Whitney's  own  report,  he  did  his  best 
to  have  that  printed  "  in  a  suitable  and  decent 
manner  " ;  but  he  tried  in  vain.  "  The  printer," 
he  writes, "  seems  to  have  it  all  his  own  way,  and 
though  he  is  notoriously  defrauding  the  Gov- 
ernment, yet  there  are  so  many  who  have  their 
fingers  in  the  spoils,  that  nothing  seems  likely 
to  be  accomplished  in  the  way  of  putting  an 
end  to  such  disgraceful  proceedings." 

The  first  edition  was  so  badly  done  that 
Congress  rejected  it;  the  second  was  hardly 
better.  There  was  a  small  appropriation  made 
for  another,  condensed,  report.  But  Foster  was 
making  money  with  a  marble  quarry  in  Ver- 
mont, and  Whitney  refused  to  touch  the  mat- 
ter at  all,  until  assured  that  it  would  be  kept 
clear  of  jobbery.  Long  before  the  spring  of 
1853,  when  the  report  was  finally  put  in  circu- 
lation, both  its  authors  were  heartily  disgusted 
with  the  whole  affair.  Meanwhile,  a  hopeful 
plan  for  a  private  work  on  the  Lake  Superior 
region  collapsed  promptly,  as  soon  as  Whitney 
learned  that  a  chief  promoter  of  the  scheme 
expected  his  own  mines  to  be  treated  discreetly. 


122        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

The  mining  industry  in  the  United  States 
was  in  an  unusual  condition  during  the  ten 
years  which  succeeded  1845.  There  were  some 
hundreds  of  unimportant  mines,  of  one  kind 
and  another,  scattered  here  and  there  over  the 
eastern  portion  of  the  continent,  many  of 
which  had  been  worked  since  colonial  days. 
The  important  lead  region,  which  includes 
some  two  thousand  square  miles  of  the  south- 
western corner  of  Wisconsin,  and  the  borders 
of  Iowa  and  Illinois  behind  Galena  and  Du- 
buque,  was  developed  after  1830.  In  1845  came 
the  Lake  Superior  copper,  and  in  1849  the 
beginnings  of  the  rush  for  gold  to  California. 
Oddly  enough,  the  discovery  of  new  mining 
regions  revived  interest  in  the  old ;  and  between 
new  and  old,  as  long  as  the  boom  lasted,  the 
demand  for  mining  engineers  quite  outran  the 
supply.  Whitney,  with  his  thorough  German 
training,  his  five  years  in  Upper  Michigan,  and 
enough  acquaintance  with  fossils  to  handle 
paleontological  evidence,  found  no  difficulty  in 
establishing  himself  as  a  consulting  expert,  and 
soon  had  a  clientage  throughout  eastern  United 
States  and  Canada. 

It  chanced  about  the  time  when  Josiah 
Whitney  was  establishing  himself  in  his  new 
profession,  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
two  "funny  boys,"  friends  of  his  brother  Wil- 


METALLIC   WEALTH  123 

Ham,  —  Francis  Child,  later  the  great  Anglo- 
Saxon  scholar,  and  George  Martin  Lane,  the 
Latinist,  both  then,  as  for  the  remainder  of 
their  working  lives,  teachers  in  Harvard  Col- 
lege. To  the  younger  Cambridge  set  of  the  day 
belonged  also  Benjamin  Apthorp  Gould,  the 
astronomer,  who  at  that  time  was  determining 
longitudes  for  the  Coast  Survey. 

"  Gould,  Lane,  and  I,"  Whitney  wrote  his 
brother,  "  have  been  trying  to  get  a  nice,  quiet, 
and  retired  house  in  Cambridge,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  establishing  an  old  Bachelor  Hall,  to 
which,  by  a  sort  of  counting  our  chickens  be- 
fore they  were  hatched,  we  have  given  the  name 
of  '  Clover  Den.' " 

After  no  little  trouble  with  landlords  who 
were  "  afraid  of  letting  a  house  to  such  young 
men,"  Clover  Den  finally  materialized  itself,  in 
April  of  1852,  in  the  old  Mann  house  at  the 
elbow  of  Pollen  Street,  close  to  the  Cambridge 
green  and  just  off  what  is  now  Massachusetts 
Avenue,  but  was  then  "  the  road  to  Porter's." 
The  three  original  "  denizens  "  added  to  their 
number  another  astronomer,  Joseph  Winlock, 
who  had  already  begun  his  work  on  the  "  Nauti- 
cal Almanac,"  and  a  man  and  his  wife  by  the 
name  of  Marshall,  who  between  them  kept  the 
house.  For  Whitney,  however,  during  months  at 
a  time,  Clover  Den  was  but  a  temporary  shelter 


124        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

to  which  he  returned  from  distant  excursions, 
for  the  sake  of  his  own  books,  a  place  to  write, 
and  the  two  great  libraries  at  his  elbow. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

ST.  Louis,  MISSOURI,  November  2,  1852. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  It  is  indeed  a  long  time 
since  I  have  written  you,  longer  by  far  than  I 
mean  to  have  intervene  between  my  letters ; 
but  I  have  been  on  the  move  almost  all  the 
time,  or  else,  when  brought  to  a  stoppage  .  .  . 
too  feverish  and  fretting  to  think  of  sitting 
down  to  write  anything  more  than  a  hasty 
page.  Since  my  last,  I  have  traveled  many  a 
weary  mile,  and  some  very  pleasant  ones.  .  .  . 

When  have  I  met  a  man  this  summer  to 
whom  I  could  talk  about  [the  Tyrol,  where 
William  has  lately  been  tramping]  ?  Oh,  it  was 
Dr.  Scherzer,  a  Viennese  gentleman,  who  is 
making  a  great  journey  through  North  and 
South  America  in  company  with  Dr.  Wagner, 
who  has  written  on  the  Caucasus.  His  love  for 
Tyrol  is  about  on  a  par  with  mine.  ...  If  you 
did  not  get  your  enthusiasm  worked  up  to  a 
high  pitch  on  that  journey,  then  it  is  a  pity 
that  you  did  not  have  me  along  with  you,  for  I 
should  have  displayed  sentiment  enough  to 
carry  both  of  us  up  to  a  pretty  respectable 
pitch.  .  .  . 


METALLIC   WEALTH  125 

As  for  my  own  journeyings  .  .  .  they  have 
been  somewhat  circuitous  and  extensive.  I 
visited  all  the  mines  on  Lake  Superior,  went 
down  and  through  them,  and  made  plans  of 
them  all,  from  the  tip  end  of  Keweenaw  Point 
to  within  hailing  distance  of  Agogebic  Lake. 
[The  distance  is  just  about  a  hundred  miles.] 
My  headquarters  I  made  at  Mr.  [Sam  W.] 
Hill's  at  Copper  Falls,  where  I  was  as  comfort- 
able as  possible.  He  accompanied  me  in  a  good 
many  of  my  excursions ;  and  if  he  did  not  go 
with  me,  Stevens  generally  did,  so  that  I  always 
had  company.  I  forget  whether  you  saw  Stevens 
when  you  were  on  the  Lake.  He  is  the  heavi- 
est owner  of  mining  stocks  in  that  region,  and 
the  most  active  explorer  on  the  Lake.  When 
he  first  went  up,  he  had  50  cents  in  baarem 
Geld,  and  tended  saw-mill.  .  .  . 

All  summer  long  the  woods  were  everywhere 
on  fire.  In  the  Ontonagon  region,  their  clear- 
ings were  burnt  over  again  and  again ;  the  soil 
seemed  to  be  nothing  but  tinder ;  mining  opera- 
tions were  almost  suspended  to  the  west  of  the 
river,  and  you  could  hardly  find  your  way 
through  the  woods  in  the  thickness  of  the 
smoke.  The  same  was  the  case  on  Isle  Royale, 
and  we  several  times  saw  the  light  of  the  burn- 
ing woods  quite  distinctly  at  Copper  Falls,  a 
distance  of  55  miles  in  a  straight  line. 


126        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

But  to  return  to  my  voyaging,  that  you  may 
know  how  I  got  here.  When  I  passed  through 
Albany,  on  my  way  west,  Hall  promised  to  join 
me  during  the  latter  part  of  the  season,  and  we 
were  to  make  a  reconnaissance  of  Missouri  to- 
gether. I  also  desired  to  have  a  look  at  the 
lead  region  of  Wisconsin  and  Iowa.  ...  Un- 
fortunately my  letter  to  Hall  did  not  hit  him, 
as  he  was  up  in  Vermont  making  a  tour  with 
Lyell  (who  has  come  over  to  lecture  in  the 
Lowell  Institute).  So  I  had  to  set  out  for  Mil- 
waukee .  .  .  without  hearing  from  Hall. 

I  soon  found  Lapham  [Increase  Allen  Lap- 
ham  had  become,  self-taught,  the  first  authority 
on  all  matters  pertaining  to  Wisconsin]  who 
made  me  stay  at  his  house,  and  together  we 
oxed  [i.  e.  worked]  up  the  environs  of  that 
city  during  three  days  of  continuous  rain.  Lap- 
ham  is  a  brick,  and  he  treated  me  in  the  hand- 
somest manner  possible.  I  had  the  good  luck 
to  be  able  to  purchase  at  Milwaukee  a  fine 
collection  of  specimens  from  the  lead  region 
(for  $10),  which  had  been  sent  to  the  State 
Fair.  Lapham  accompanied  me  west ;  and  we 
traveled  together  by  stage,  buggy,  and  on  foot, 
to  Madison,  the  Blue  Mounds,  and  Mineral 
Point.  [The  distance  is  something  like  140 
miles  through  the  midst  of  the  lead  district  of 
southeastern  Wisconsin.]  Favored  from  the 


METALLIC   WEALTH  127 

time  of  leaving  Milwaukee  by  the  most  delight- 
ful Indian  Summer  weather,  we  had  a  fine  op- 
portunity of  seeing  the  country  and  its  geology. 
I  went  alone  from  Mineral  Point  to  Galena, 
and  thence  to  Dubuque,  spending  a  week  in 
that  neighborhood.  By  this  time  our  beautiful 
Indian  Summer  seemed  to  have  come  to  a  close, 
for  we  have  had  nothing  but  rain  and  mud  for 
the  last  ten  days.  I  have  been  here  since  Oc- 
tober 3oth,  busily  engaged  in  picking  up  fossils 
at  the  quarries  about  the  city,  calling  on  the 
scientific  gentlemen  .  .  .  and  looking  for  the 
weather  to  clear  up,  so  that  I  may  start  out 
and  take  a  look  at  the  Missouri  formations. 

I  shall  probably  return  to  the  East  some 
time  the  latter  part  of  this  month ;  it  depends 
on  the  weather,  and  on  Hall's  movements. 

The  trip  continued  through  Iowa,  Missouri, 
Kentucky,  and  Ohio;  and  finally  ended  at 
Cambridge  at  the  beginning  of  December.  It 
was  the  first  of  a  series  of  such  excursions  un- 
dertaken during  the  next  two  years. 

TO   WILLIAM    D WIGHT    WHITNEY 
IRVING  HOUSE,  NEW  YORK,  January  16,  1853. 

DEAR  WILL,  — .  .  .  What  you  write  about 
your  eyes  is  very  disagreeable  news.  I  had 
supposed  that  you  were  getting  entirely  over 


128        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

that  trouble,  as  you  had  not  made  your  appear- 
ance at  home,  and  I  thought  that  you  would 
certainly  come  home  for  a  visit  if  your  optics 
still  continued  to  trouble  you.  It  seems  rather 
to  be  regretted,  on  some  accounts,  that  when 
you  left  Tubingen,  instead  of  wandering  about 
in  mud  and  rain  and  trying  to  find  some  reason 
for  disliking  that  heaven  on  earth,  Tyrol  and  the 
Salzkammergut,  you  did  not  make  a  straight 
wake  for  the  salt  water,  plunge  in  and  strike 
out  for  Cape  Cod.  You  might  have  taken  up 
your  quarters  at  the  Den,  and  vibrated  between 
there  and  Northampton.  As  far  as  the  "  A tharva  " 
is  concerned,  I  suppose  that  can  be  put  off  for 
a  few  months,  without  serious  inconvenience 
to  anybody;  though  of  course  since  it  has  been 
noised  about,  through  the  medium  of  the  "  Trib- 
une" and  other  papers,  that  you  were  engaged 
in  the  preparation  of  that  work,  the  reading 
public  is  all  agog  to  get  hold  of  it.  Why  should 
you  not  return  home  at  the  end  of  this  semester, 
and  spend  the  summer  in  bumbling  [i.  e.  loaf- 
ing] about  with  me  as  my  assistant,  turning 
your  attention  again  to  natural  history,  and 
then  return  in  the  fall  to  London  and  Paris  ? 

You  would  have  lost  Lepsius's  lectures  by 
coming  home,  and  I  am  glad  that  you  like  him. 
I  always  had  a  strong  disposition  to  admire 
him,  though  I  have  heard  him  much  abused.  I 


METALLIC  WEALTH  129 

shall  have  a  great  curiosity  to  know  something 
of  the  results  which  you  have  obtained  from  his 
lectures.  Will  you  not  want  to  make  yourself 
acquainted  with  what  the  English  Archaeolo- 
gists are  doing  ?  I  have  heard  of  some  interest- 
ing discoveries  of  Layard  and  Rawlinson,  with 
regard  to  the  antiquity  of  the  book  of  Daniel, 
which  Lyell  said  they  had  found  to  have  been 
written  after  the  events  had  taken  place  which 
it  professed  to  predict.  It  seems  that  Layard 
was  afraid  to  communicate  this  discovery  to 
the  public,  as  his  publisher  assured  him  that  it 
would  injure  the  sale  of  his  book. 

Mr.  Hall  came  to  Northampton  just  before 
New  Year's  in  a  state  of  considerable  excite- 
ment, and  told  me  a  long  story  about  how 

had  stolen  a  geological  map  from  him  .  .  .  put- 
ting his  name  to  it  as  the  author,  and  pocket- 
ing three  or  four  hundred  dollars  by  so  doing ! 
This  is  Hall's  statement,  and  I  need  hardly  say 
that  he  was  "riled  up"  to  the  last  degree, 
when  he  found  it  out.  .  .  . 

There  seems  to  be  nothing  but  quarreling 
among  the  scientific  men  in  this  country.  I 
certainly  have  done  my  share  of  it,  and  yet  I 
believe  that  I  have  tried  to  act  fairly  and  hon- 
orably toward  everyone.  There  is  a  triangular 
contest  now  going  on  between  Morton,  Wells, 
and  Jackson,  for  the  sum  of  $100,000,  which 


130        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Congress  seems  inclined  to  vote  to  the  discov- 
erer of  etherization,  if  he  can  be  found.  Morton 
has  succeeded  in  having  witnesses  summoned, 
and  testimony  taken,  under  oath.  ...  I  had  to 
give  mine  at  Washington.  It  consisted  princi- 
pally in  my  having  no  knowledge  of  the  fact 
alleged  to  have  taken  place  in  the  spring  of 
1842  in  Jackson's  laboratory,  when  I  was  living 
in  his  family.  ...  I  felt  very  unwilling  to  tes- 
tify; but,  after  all,  it  hardly  seems  right  in  me 
to  withhold  such  important  testimony  merely 
because  I  am  afraid  that  my  having  given  it 
will  be  ascribed  to  motives  of  revenge.  What 
do  you  think  about  it  ? 

Materials  are  gathering  in  for  the  large  work 
on  the  metallic  resources  of  the  United  States, 
which  I  have  proposed  to  Lippincott,  Grambo 
&  Co.  of  Philadelphia  to  publish.  The  collect- 
ing of  the  materials  will  necessarily  be  a  slow 
job.  In  the  meantime  I  have  numerous  offers 
from  parties  in  New  York,  to  make  explora- 
tions and  examinations,  for  which  I  can  be  well 
paid,  and  which  will  distinctly  serve  my  pur- 
pose for  the  big  book.  I  have  every  reason  to 
be  satisfied  with  my  scientific  position,  only  I 
fear  that  I  am  placed  higher  than  I  deserve  to 
be.  I  cannot  begin  to  do  all  the  work  which  is 
offered  to  me,  or  rather  which  I  could  have,  if 
I  should  decide  to  take  up  my  quarters  here, 


J.  D.   Whitney.      Aetat.  about  30 


->IAH   D WIGHT  WH1TKE' 


Mv-d  in  having  witness*,-  *usr*imo.'  • 
.  '»ny  taker),  under  oath,  ,  ;  ^acl  K 
give  mine  at  Washington.  It  consisted  y*i&ci- 
p.<  :u  my  having  no  knowledge  of  t!i». 
aeogv  1  I*1*  have  taken  place  in  the.  spring  sit 
?S  »2  in  Jackson's  laboratory,  when  I  was  living 
in  his  family.  , .  .  .  I  felt  very  unwilling  to  tes- 
tify; but,  after  all  it  hardly  seems  right  in  me 
to  withhold  such  important  testimony  merely 
because  m\  afraid  "tK.if 'my  ha^-xi  jpvrr*.  ir 
will  he  a*ciiberf;t7  motives  ut  r-  -^m 

do  you  thissjc  aboi^  it  - 

on  the  metallic  resources  of  th\i  Unlteti  States, 
v/hich'J  have  pi-oros^ :!  to  U^xincdtf.  Grambo 
&  "Co.  of-  PhiiadeU  :  ^  •  ^  pwfcL  The  cbllect- 
i:;g.of  vhe  'nialer  '  ^>:*  n*"c»Nari)y  be  a  slow 
]"b;  1ft  the  rnea  -  >  have  numerous  offers 
rorn  |>urtfe  in  Nrv  York,  to  make  explora- 
lloas  and  cxannnur  ns,  ior  which  I  cari'te  wx-ll 
pale),  artd^  whfchr  vVill  distinctly* strife  my  |5ur- 
i:  .n:  for  the  fc&g'tbook.  I  hd've  eVetf^  i^s^on  to 
be  G 

*«j*ar  that  f  am  placed  higher  tKiii^  f^c^rve  to 
I  cannot  begin  tado  all'' '^'i.-*-  ^c^k  which  is 

I  to  me  or 
'5UMU3  decide  l< 


METALLIC  WEALTH  131 

which  is  one  of  my  plans.  I  should  be  sorry  to 
leave  the  Den,  which  is  so  pleasantly  fitted  up, 
and  on  some  accounts  so  desirable  a  residence ; 
but  there  are  strong  reasons  why  I  should  do 
so.  Science  in  Cambridge  in  my  department 
stands  so  low,  that  it  is  painful  to  be  there : 

A !  B !  I  cannot  expect  to  get  much 

work  as  long  as  I  remain  there.  It  would  be 
pleasant  if  you  could  take  my  place  when  you 
return.  .  .  .  Cambridge  would  be  a  better  place 
for  you  than  for  me. 

I  am  much  tempted  to  make  an  Ausflug 
to  Central  America!  Dr.  Wagner  and  Dr. 
Scherzer  are  going  thither  in  June,  and  have  in- 
vited me  to  keep  them  company.  It  would  be 
a  great  chance  to  collect  some  new  materials. 
But  —  but  —  there  are  many  things  to  be  taken 
into  consideration. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

NORTHAMPTON,  February  27,  1853. 

.  . .  Some  of  the  influential  citizens  of  Mis- 
souri are  talking  of  offering  the  geological  sur- 
vey of  that  state  to  me ;  but  I  have  taken  no 
steps  to  apply  for  it,  having  somewhat  the 
dread  of  fever  and  ague  before  my  eyes.  Ex- 
ploring in  Missouri  would  do  excellently — if 
October  lasted  all  the  year,  and  if  there  were 
any  roads  or  bridges  or  hotels  or  anything  of 


132        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

that  kind.  I  don't  think  it  hardly  pays  to  have 
"  them  shakes."  I  have  an  offer  to  go  down  in 
Tennessee  and  to  Pennsylvania  and  in  Ver- 
mont and  North  Carolina  and  Lake  Superior 
on  my  hands  already.  So  with  all  that  ...  I 
asked  father  yesterday,  whether  he  thought 
I  was  in  danger  of  starving  for  want  of  work :  I 
managed  to  squeeze  out  an  answer  in  the  neg- 
ative. 

Edward  E.  Salisbury,  for  the  sake  of  indu- 
cing William  Whitney  to  come  to  Yale,  has  of- 
fered to  divide  his  professorship,  give  him  the 
Sanscrit,  and  retain  the  Arabic.  Josiah  is 
doubtful 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

NEW  YORK,  May  22,  1853. 

DEAR  WILL,- —  I  would  much  prefer  to  see  you 
at  Cambridge,  but  who  is  there  who  will  endow  a 
Professorship  of  the  Oriental  languages  hand- 
somely for  that  College  ?  There  is  so  much  more 
liberality  of  religious  opinion  at  Harvard,  that 
your  position  would  be  pleasanter.  As  you  re- 
mark, it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  you  to  assist  in 
editing  the  Oriental  Society  journal,  at  any  rate. 
If  being  at  New  Haven  would  lay  any  restraint 
on  you,  so  that  you  would  be  unable  to  publish 
and  write  your  opinions  in  the  course  of  your 


METALLIC   WEALTH  133 

researches,  then  I  would  not  go  there ;  other- 
wise I  do  not  see  the  necessity  of  saying  you 
cannot  go  because  your  opinions  are  different 
from  theirs.  Gibbs,  when  consulted  about  tak- 
ing a  professorship  there,  remarked  that  he 
wished  the  Faculty  to  take  into  consideration 
that  he  often  worked  on  Sunday,  and  rarely 
went  to  church.  I  believe  he  has  not  been 
troubled  with  any  application  since  that  from 
Yale.  ...  I  could  hardly  afford  to  take  a  pro- 
fessorship there,  as  I  can  earn  easily  twice  as 
much  by  my  present  employment.  I  am  offered 
$500  a  month  to  go  up  to  Lake  Superior  this 
summer.  ...  I  hope  you  will  find  it  very  pleas- 
ant at  Oxford  and  only  wish  that  I  could  be 
with  you  there,  this  summer,  in  beautiful  Eng- 
land. Pity  we  could  n't  visit  that  little  Paradise, 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  together. 

As  for  myself,  I  have  been  more  of  a  vagrant 
than  ever  lately.  I  have  just  returned  from  a 
six  weeks'  tour  through  the  Southern  States. 
I  took  the  steamer  to  Charleston,  South  Caro- 
lina, thence  by  railroad  into  the  corner  of  Ten- 
nessee, back  again  to  Augusta,  and  up  through 
South  Carolina  into  North  Carolina  to  the 
copper  and  gold  mines  around  Charlotte,  Lex- 
ington, Greensboro,  etc.  I  returned  by  way  of 
Raleigh,  Richmond,  and  Washington.  At  the 
latter  place  I  met  Foster  who  is  on  his  way  to 


134        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

the  Southwest,  intending  to  make  some  ex- 
plorations away  nearly  to  the  base  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  for  some  people  in  Wash- 
ington. The  precise  locality  of  his  destination 
is  a  profound  secret,  I  believe. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 
COPPER  FALLS  [MICHIGAN],  A ugust  19  and  22, 1853. 

...  I  was  much  surprised  to  see  by  the 
"  Hampshire  Gazette  "  that  you  had  actually  re- 
turned a  fortnight  since.  The  last  I  heard  was 
that  you  were  coming  by  a  sailing  vessel.  .  .  . 
However,  you  are  safe  at  home,  and  I  don't  be- 
lieve that  you  have  lost  anything  by  not  being 
a  month  or  six  weeks  on  the  way.  You  will 
have  time  to  make  a  long  visit  [at  Northamp- 
ton] before  I  shall  be  at  home.  .  .  . 

My  business  has  kept  me  peregrinating  in 
every  direction.  I  have  been  to  Prince's  Bay, 
Isle  Royale, and Michipicoten Island  [Ontario], 
To-morrow  I  expect  to  leave  with  Hill  for  the 
Ontonagon.  .  .  .  Then  I  must  go  to  the  Por- 
tage. .  .  .  The  season  has  been  very  pleasant  for 
exploring,  and  there  is  much  of  interest  to  be 
seen  through  the  country.  Only  I  have  been  so 
continually  " on  the  go"  for  the  last  thirteen 
or  fourteen  months,  that  I  am  pretty  well  tired 
out  and  need  repose.  .  .  . 

I  am  going  out  to  the  lead  region  as  soon  as 


METALLIC   WEALTH  135 

I  get  through  here.  ...  I  have  business  out 
that  way  in  collecting  information  for  my  book, 
for  which  the  materials  are  gradually  accumu- 
lating. Two  or  three  months  more  will  place 
me  in  possession  of  original  observations  on 
all  the  different  mining  districts  of  the  country 
this  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  of  nearly 
all  the  important  mines.  [This]  winter  [I  plan] 
to  get  together  as  fast  as  possible  the  materials 
for  the  work  on  the  metallic  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try. My  position  now  is  a  very  good  one,  since 
I  can  carry  out  a  favorite  plan,  and  make  some 
$500  a  month  in  doing  it.  I  get  that  sum  now 
and  have  hardly  any  expenses  here.  They  are 
talking  of  sending  me  to  England  this  next 
winter.  .  .  . 

We  shall  be  able  to  talk  over  our  plans  to- 
gether next  October,  and  I  hope  that  I  shall  be 
at  home  during  a  few  of  the  last  fine  days  of 
autumn,  to  join  in  that "  gay  time  "  of  which  you 
speak.  If  you  are  at  a  loss  for  manuscript  to 
copy,  and  have  eschewed  the  Orientals  for  a 
space,  I  can  only  say  that  I  can  give  you  a 
pretty  respectable  salary  to  act  as  my  assist- 
ant. Will  you  not  write  that  article  for  the 
"North  American  Review"  on  the  Egup- 
shun  Arrowglifficks?  I  wrote  to  Bowen  about 
it,  and  he  expressed  himself  tickled  at  the 
idea. 


136        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

OGDENSBURG,  NEW  YORK,  November  6,  1853. 
.  .  .  You  may  be  having  the  most  delightful 
Indian  summer  down  in  your  latitude,  but  up 
in  this  arctic  region  we  are  enjoying  the  rigors 
of  a  Siberian  winter.  .  .  .  This  evening  the  stars 
are  twinkling  with  that  peculiar  vivacity  which 
indicates  that  the  thermometer  is  down  to  some- 
where about  15°.  For  all  that,  it  is  melancholy 
to  think  that  I  must  leave  this  comfortable  room 
at  the  dread  hour  of  midnight,  and  ride  till 
morning,  without  ever  a  bottle  of  hot  water  to 
my  head,  or  a  fur  tippet  around  my  feet.  My 
teeth  chatter  now  in  anticipation.  And  to-mor- 
row I  must  descend  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
and  indulge  in  a  subterranean  shower-bath  of 
fearful  duration!  How  much  better  to  be  oxing 
up  what  some  old  fogy  of  a  Pharaoh  did,  ten 
thousand  years  ago,  in  a  comfortable  arm-chair 
by  a  warm  stove!  .  .  .  We  did  not  reach  Mont- 
pelier  .  .  .  till  midnight,  having  been  detained 
by  a  train  which  had  run  off  the  track,  and 
smashed  up  ;  and  yesterday  we  leaped  our  en- 
gine over  a  big  log  which  some  malicious  devil 
had  placed  across  the  track,  but  which  luckily 
failed  to  throw  us  off.  ...  I  think  I  won't  get 
caught  up  here  again  in  winter  unless  it  is 
necessary. 


METALLIC   WEALTH  137 

With  this  excursion,  the  field  work  of  the  year 
came  to  an  end,  and  Whitney  settled  down  in 
his  winter  quarters  at  Cambridge  to  write  the 
book  which  he  named  "  The  Metallic  Wealth 
of  the  United  States "  to  his  public,  and 
"  Grambo  "  to  his  friends. 

The  memory  of  Clover  Den  has  not  yet 
faded  out  of  Cambridge.  All  four  of  its  inhabit- 
ants were  on  the  way  to  distinction ;  Lane  was  all 
his  life  a  famous  wit,  and  between  linguists  and 
men  of  science,  the  College  and  Coast  Survey, 
when  all  roads  led  to  Boston,  the  Den,  enter- 
taining largely,  brought  together  a  brilliant 
company  of  guests. 

To  the  setting  of  this  fellowship,  Whitney 
contributed  "  his  beautiful  books";  and  Win- 
lock  the  fourth  largest  telescope  in  the  United 
States,  which  he  mounted  in  the  henhouse, 
and  by  a  natural  association  of  ideas  christened 
the  Shanghai.  Winlock  with  his  own  hands 
built  a  banqueting  table  at  which  a  handful  of 
the  inner  circle,  togaed  in  blankets  and  sandaled, 
dined  in  the  Roman  manner,  with  the  factotum 
Marshall  as  chained  slave  at  the  door,  and  all 
tongues  except  Latin  taboo.  The  four  asso- 
ciates, combining  two  ancient  customs,  united 
in  adoring  a  gracious  lady  whom  they  called 
the  Angebetete,  but  whose  chief  function  was  to 
preside  over  mixed  dinners.  Altogether,  life  at 


138        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Clover  Den  was  not  conspicuously  common- 
place. 

Some  touch  of  its  gay  spirit  survives  in 
Whitney's  brief  notes  to  his  brother  Wil- 
liam, who  himself  spent  long  weeks  at  the 
"Grambo  Shop"  serving  as  "  Hypogrambo- 
grapher." 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CLOVER  DEN,  December  25,  1853. 

...  A  merry  Christmas  to  you  this  fine 
morning;  to  you  who  have  some  chance  of 
being  merry.  To  us,  alas !  that  hope  is  not 
extant.  The  "femineo  ululatu  "  in  the  cellar 
under  my  feet,  informs  me  that  five  have 
been  added  to  our  stock  of  puppies  this  morning. 

And  as  misfortunes  never  come  single,  Z 

has  informed  us  that  he  intends  to  tear  him- 
self away  to-morrow.  In  this  flying  visit  of  a 
month,  we  have  found  in  his  character  much 
to  admire,  and  we  trust  that,  should  circum- 
stances render  it  convenient  for  him  to  come 
again  soon,  he  will  spend  a  few  years  with  us, 
so  that  we  may  feel  less  pressed  by  the  fear 
of  his  leaving  and  so  enjoy  his  call  somewhat 
better. 

I  know  that  you  have  a  Christian  heart,  and 
so  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  will  hasten 
down  to  console  and  sympathize  with  your  af- 


METALLIC   WEALTH  139 

flicted  brother  under  all  these  tribulations.  As 
soon  as  you  have  wound  up  1854,  and  set  it 
going,  I  shall  expect  to  see  you  here.  .  .  . 
Bring  down  .  .  .  some  doughnuts. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

December '27,  1853. 

.  . .  You  must  positively  be  here  by  Wednes- 
day noon  at  the  latest  —  better  Tuesday  night. 
It 's  all  gammon  to  say  that  you  won't  want 
to  hear  Julien  more  than  a  couple  of  times 
or  so.  You  must  be  here  to  the  rehearsal  on 
Wednesday  afternoon.  As  for  helping  in  my 
book,  I  have  got  lots  of  work  for  you  to 
do,  and  I  shall  bore  you  with  it  as  long  as  I 
can  persuade  you  to  stay.  Nothing  but  deadly 
poverty  prevents  my  having  a  privateer,  as 
Gould  calls  his  small  red-headed  secretary  or 
grammaticus.  You  had  better  bring  down 
some  work  of  your  own,  so  that  I  shall  not 
seem  to  be  using  up  all  your  time.  I  only  want 
to  get  enough  out  of  you  to  pay  for  your  board. 

As  for  Z ,  it  is  not  that  I  don't  like  him 

very  well,  and  I  was,  after  all,  rather  sorry  to 
have  him  go;  it  is  that  he  has  so  little  delicacy 
in  his  manners  and  ways  of  doing  things.  I 
can't  get  over  his  inviting  himself  to  our  house 
to  keep  Thanksgiving.  You  see  Lane  and  I 
are  so  different  about  some  things.  He  con- 


140        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

siders  it  a  good  joke  to  have  half-a-dozen 
strangers  in  the  house  to  tea,  unexpectedly, 
and  nothing  under  heavens  for  them  to  eat, 
and  not  knives  and  forks  enough  to  go 
round.  His  principles  are  not  in  the  slight- 
est degree  opposed  to  sleeping  three  in  a 
bed. 

As  for  your  idea  about  coaxing  something 
out  of  mother  for  the  Den,  I  would  remark 
that  it  is  all  fish  which  comes  to  our  net.  Sas- 
sengers,when  you  knows  the  lady  as  made  'em, 
is  particularly  edifying.  Maria  might  make  us 
some  cake,  p'r'aps. 

Did  I  write  to  you  about  the  glorious  per- 
formance of  the  Messiah,  on  Sunday  night? 
No,  I  believe  not.  I  never  heard  so  fine  chorus 
singing  anywhere ;  such  clear  enunciation 
and  volume  of  voice.  The  solos  were  taken  in 
a  way  that  nobody  need  be  ashamed  of,  by 
resident  Bostonians.  All  I  can  say  is  that  I 
hope  they  will  give  us  Elijah,  while  you  are 
here.  By  the  way,  would  n't  it  be  a  good  plan 
to  bring  the  score  down,  on  the  principle  of  the 
boy  who  had  the  salt  ready  for  the  egg  that 
Providence  might  send  ? 

Hall  writes  me  that  he  is  coming  down  to 
spend  a  few  days.  .  .  .  That  should  be  a  strong 
additional  reason  for  you  to  come  as  early  as 
possible. 


METALLIC   WEALTH  141 


TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

January  3,  1854. 

...  I  shall  expect  you  on  Thursday  and 
will  be  at  the  Fitchburg  R.R.  depot  on  the  ar- 
rival of  the  train.  .  .  .  Bring  up  with  you  a 
mask  and  a  glove  for  fencing,  if  you  can  find 
them  ;  also  Bancroft's  History ;  also  Lapham's 
Map  of  Wisconsin,  if  you  can  lay  your  hand 
on  that.  .  .  .  As  for  eatables  —  I  am  princi- 
pally anxious  lest  you  should  miss,  at  our 
homely  table,  the  twenty-five  hot  buckwheats 
with  which  you  have  been  wont  to  plaster  your 
stomach,  every  morning.  ...  So  you  must 
bring  down  something  to  nibble  at  in  the  be- 
tween-meal  hours.  Now  is  the  time  to  ox  up 
Lunam  with  the  Shanghai. 

TO  WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

February  15,  1854. 

.  .  .  Things  go  on  at  the  Den  as  well  as 
could  be  expected  considering  the  weather, 
which  is  atrocious.  Grambo  is  moving  along 
at  a  respectable  pace.  Mr.  Parker  preached  a 
tremendous  sermon  on  the  Nebraska  bill,  last 
Sunday.  I  was  sorry  that  you  were  not  here 
to  hear  it.  ...  Pais  gave  a  concert,  night  be- 
fore last.  ...  I  could  n't  go  on  account  of  the 
dilapidated  state  of  my  only  pair  of  black  pants. 


142        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

February  26,  1854. 

...  As  far  as  the  work  on  Grambo  goes,  I 
think  that  I  shall  have  350  foolscap  pages  of 
manuscript  ready  to  print,  and  most  of  the  ma- 
terial collected  and  arranged.  There  is  nothing 
new  going  on.  The  Pinakothecarius  [Lane] 
has  gone  to  New  York;  the  Glyptothecarius 
[Winlock]  will  not  be  back  before  April.  The 
Bpothecarius  oxes  Hydrargyrum  [i.  e.  B.  A. 
Gould  studies  the  planet  Mercury]  and  grum- 
bles at  the  weather,  which  is  truly  abomi- 
nable. .  .  . 

We  had  quite  a  meeting  of  the  solid  men  of 
Boston  last  Thursday  afternoon.  Rev.  Dr.  Blag- 
den  of  the  Old  South  got  tremendously  hissed 
for  asserting  that  Slavery  was  of  divine  origin. 
After  all  the  old  fogies  had  said  their  say,  there 
was  a  great  call  for  [Anson]  Burlingame !  the 
meeting  being  decidedly  more  anti-slavery  than 
its  originators.  The  day  the  Nebraska  bill 
passes,  I  shall  begin  to  pack  up  and  get  ready 
to  move  to  some  infidel,  despotic  country, 
where  such  good  democratic  Christians  as 
Pierce  and  Douglas  don't  grow.  Will  you  come 
along  ? 

Yours  ever, 

Jo,  APOTHECARIUS,  etc. 


METALLIC   WEALTH  143 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

March  28,  1854. 

...  I  am  very  sorry  to  learn  that  Edward 
[a  brother  just  turning  twenty-one  and  still  at 
home]  has  undertaken  the  flute.  There  are 
6,000,000  good  reasons,  in  his  case,  why  he 
should  have  stuck  to  the  piano.  ...  I  could 
have  given  him  a  common,  eight-keyed  flute, 
which  is  of  no  use  to  me. 

There  are  only  two  instruments  which  a 
young  man  (unprofessional)  should  attempt  to 
learn  —  piano  or  violin  (unless  he  wishes  to 
play  in  an  amateur  four-letter  party).  Any  man 
who  learns  the  flute  is  a  jackup.  I  am  a  jackup. 
Don't  you  be  a  jackup.  Don't  let  Edward  be 
a  jackup. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

March  14,  1854.- 

...  [I  am]  suffering  with  an  abominable 
cold  which  still  hangs  on,  though  somewhat 
relieved:  consequently  I  am  as  stupid  as  a 
penguin,  or  as . 

At  New  York,  I  found  that  it  would  proba- 
bly require  from  six  weeks  to  two  months  to 
go  to  Cuba,  and  I  concluded  to  give  it  up.  .  .  . 
Offers,  of  the  most  pressing,  were  made  to  me  in 
New  York  to  go  to  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 


144        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

New  Mexico,  etc.  I  do  not  see  any  appearance 
of  being  likely  to  be  out  of  work  immediately. 
Foster  and  Hall  will  both  be  here  this  week. 
I  think  decidedly  best,  unless  Foster  brings  up 
some  reasons  to  the  contrary,  to  push  Grambo 
along  as  fast  as  possible.  Yet  I  see  that  I  have 
got  to  work  like  a  Trowjun  to  do  it  up  before 
June.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  As  to  your  going  along  with  me  to 
Philadelphia  [to  put  the  book  through  the 
press],  ...  I  see  plainly  that  I  have  got  more 
material  than  I  can  manage;  and  of  course, 
you  know  that  your  aid  and  oversight  would 
be  of  great  help  to  me.  .  .  .  But  it  would  give 
me  no  satisfaction  to  have  you  along,  if  I  thought 
that  you  would  have  been  employed  otherwise 
and  in  a  better  manner.  ...  It  would  be  a  very 
stupid  job  for  you,  one  in  which  you  would 
have  very  little  satisfaction  other  than  that  of 
doing  good.  •  •  •  Could  you  go  to  Philadelphia 
and  spend  a  month,  ox  the  Astor  Library,  and 
get  back  in  time  for  [the  meeting  of  the  Orien- 
tal Society]  ?  .  .  .  But  you  must  take  an  en- 
larged view  of  the  thing,  and  not  decide  to  go 
merely  out  of  pity  for  my  loneliness  and  need 
of  help.  As  to  the  former,  I  am  used  to  living 
alone ;  and  for  the  latter  I  could  ox  up  a  "priva- 
teer "  somewhere,  I  think,  who  would  do  on  a 
pinch.  .  .  . 


METALLIC  WEALTH  145 

"  The  Metallic  Wealth  of  the  United  States" 
was  the  first  comprehensive  work  on  American 
ore  deposits,  and  its  success  was  decided.  It 
ran  to  more  than  five  hundred  large  pages, 
contained  data  from  Europe,  and  in,  addition 
to  the  commoner  metals,  included  platinum, 
bismuth,  antimony,  nickel,  cobalt,  arsenic,  mag- 
nesium, titanium,  molybdenum,  uranium,  and 
tungsten.  Much  of  the  theoretical  part  has 
been,  in  time,  left  behind  with  the  progress  of 
science:  but  its  abundance  of  solid  fact  kept  it 
for  twenty  years  the  standard  work  of  reference 
in  its  field.  "  No  one,"  Whitney  wrote  his  friend 
G.  J.  Brush,  Professor  of  Metallurgy  at  Yale, 
"knows  better  than  I  do,  the  defects  of  the 
*  Metallic  Wealth';  and  I  may  add,  no  one 
knows  better,  by  actual  investigation,  how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  get  the  kind  of  information  required 
to  make  such  a  work  perfect.  The  American 
Iron  Association  spent  $6000  to  get  the  sta- 
tistics of  iron  in  the  United  States  for  three 
years.  You  can  guess  from  that  how  much  I 
must  have  spent  both  of  time  and  money  in 
getting  the  materials  of  my  book  together.  I 
know  by  actual  count,  that  I  traveled  over 
20,000  miles  in  twenty-five  different  states 
from  first  to  last." 

Hardly  was  the  last  sheet  of  the  book  off  the 
press,  late  in  June,  when  Whitney  married 


146        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Louisa  Howe,  daughter  of  Samuel  Goddard 
of  Brookline,  and  cousin  to  his  friend  Gould. 
Mrs.  Whitney  was  three  weeks  younger  than 
her  husband,  and  thirty-four  at  the  time  of 
their  union.  The  unhappiness  of  her  first  mar- 
riage, which  after  fifteen  years  she  had  termi- 
nated by  a  divorce,  had  so  far  broken  her  health 
that  for  the  rest  of  her  days  she  was  never 
thoroughly  well.  She  was  an  ardent  musician, 
and  shared  to  the  full  both  Whitney's  joy  in 
the  art  and  his  technical  skill  in  it;  while  a 
certain  restlessness  and  love  of  change  and  ad- 
venture especially  fitted  her  to  be  the  wife  of 
a  working  geologist.  She  had  much  charm  of 
manner  and  great  social  gifts.  She  was  viva- 
cious, friendly,  hospitable,  interested  in  people, 
ambitious  for  her  husband,  fanciful  almost  to 
excess.  Altogether  she  supplemented  to  per- 
fection her  reserved  and  sturdy  husband. 

By  way  of  breaking  in  a  geologist's  wife,  the 
pair  spent  their  honeymoon  in  the  employ  of 
a  mining  company, "  oxing  up  "  the  north  shore 
of  Lake  Superior.  Here,  therefore,  ends  for 
Whitney  the  life  at  Clover  Den. 

TO  WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAULT  STE.  MARIE,  September  5,  1854. 

DEAR  WILL, — .  .  .  To  go  back  a  little  and 
make  all  things  intelligible — on  the  eighth  of 


METALLIC   WEALTH  147 

August  the  Ward  took  us  over  to  Isle  Royale, 
and  thence  to  Point  Porphyry,  leaving  Louisa 
in  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill's  friendly  care.  We  [that 
is,  the  geologists,  not  including  Mrs.  Whitney] 
had  two  boats  and  eight  persons  in  all,  so  cal- 
culated that  a  party  could  be  left  to  carry  on 
explorations  until  the  end  of  the  season,  should 
it  be  found  necessary.  I  also  agreed  with  the 
Captain  to  call  for  us  at  Rock  Harbor  [on  Isle 
Royale],  in  three  weeks  from  the  time  of  leav- 
ing. .  .  .  We  found  the  time  just  sufficient  to 
enable  us  to  do  all  that  was  necessary,  and  we 
examined  the  whole  coast  from  Les  Petits  Ecrits, 
(a  little  east  of  St.  Ignace),  to  beyond  Pigeon 
River,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
was  no  reason  to  suppose  there  was  a  workable 
vein  within  those  limits.  The  scenery  is  truly 
grand  in  Thunder  Bay.  We  climbed  Thunder 
Cape,  1300  feet  to  1400  feet  in  height,  through 
an  extraordinary  gorge  or  cleft  in  the  rock, 
with  vertical  walls,  smooth  and  perpendicular 
for  800  feet  in  height,  and  only  10  or  15  feet 
wide.  Down  this  narrow  stairway,  we  rolled 
rocks  weighing  as  much  as  ten  tons — certainly 
the  most  gigantic  rock-rolling  fun  that  ever 
was  attempted ;  before  reaching  the  half  of  the 
descent,  the  masses  became  so  enveloped  in 
dust  and  small  fragments  that  nothing  could 
be  seen  of  them,  save  now  and  then  a  volley  of 


148        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

fragments  shot  off,  like  rockets,  when  some  pro- 
jecting corner  was  struck.  In  Neepigon  Bay  the 
scenery  is  almost  as  fine.  The  whole  bay  is  sur- 
rounded by  ranges  of  trap  bluffs,  rising  almost 
vertically  from  800  to  1000  feet.  On  the  24th  we 
took  advantage  of  a  favorable  day  —  almost  the 
first  and  the  last  we  have  had — to  make  the 
traverse  from  Pie  Island  over  to  Isle  Royale. 

The  next  day  we  were  at  Scovill's  Point,  and 
having  a  half  day  to  spare,  we  made  a  visit,  en 
masse,toihe  Monument  Rocks,  where  we  used 
our  axes  so  effectually  for  a  few  hours  as  to 
lay  it  bare  on  all  sides,  opening  a  new  and 
beautiful  view  from  the  west.  But  best  of  all, 
Livermore,  McGiven,  and  I  mounted  to  the 
top.  McGiven  ran  up  like  a  squirrel  and 
fastened  a  rope  around  the  summit,  by  the  aid 
of  which  Liv.  and  I  ignominiously  —  or  glori- 
ously, just  as  you  please  —  pulled  ourselves  up. 
This  is  a  feat  which  has  only  once  before  been 
performed.  We  found  the  height  of  the  lower 
pinnacle  58  feet,  of  the  other  50  feet,  as  near 
as  we  could  measure,  with  a  cord  let  down  from 
above.  Besides,  we  cut  a  trail  to  the  Bay,  so 
that  anyone  could  come  directly  to  the  rock 
without  trouble.  And  to  cap  the  climax,  we 
recorded  our  exploits  in  full  glory  of  red  chalk 
on  a  neighboring  birch,  and  I  brought  away 
three  new  sketches. 


METALLIC   WEALTH  149 

Punctual  to  the  time,  the  Ward  took  us  off 
.  .  .  and  touched  with  us  the  next  morning,  at 
Eagle  Harbor,  where  Louisa  got  on  board.  We 
had  a  fine  run  down,  arriving  at  the  Sault  on  the 
30th.  The  next  day  I  left  for  Echo  Lake.  .  .  . 
This  morning  the  boys  started  for  the  Palladean 
[mine],  where  they  are  to  explore  until  I  join 
them,  in  a  few  days,  whence  we  all  proceed  to 
Spanish  River. 

The  Whitneys  spent  the  next  winter  in  New 
York,  boarding  and  living  in  two  rooms  at  97 
Clinton  Place,  a  little  west  of  Fifth  Avenue 
and  close  by  Washington  Square. 


CHAPTER  VI 

UNION  COLLEGE  AND  THE  STATE  SURVEYS. 
1855-1860 

INTEREST  in  mining,  outside  the  gold  fields,  the 
Lake  Superior  region,  and  the  lead  district 
which  centres  about  Galena  and  Dubuque,  had 
pretty  well  petered  out  by  the  middle  fifties. 
There  was,  in  consequence,  little  demand  for 
Whitney's  services  in  the  more  settled  portions 
of  the  country;  while  to  calls  into  more  distant 
regions  he  could  only  answer,  "  I  have  married 
a  wife  and  therefore  I  cannot  come."  The 
"  something  good  "  and  suitable  for  a  married 
man  for  which  Whitney  waited,  turned  out  to 
be  an  appointment,  in  April  of.  1855,  to  the 
chair  of  chemistry  in  the  University  of  Iowa. 
Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  University  of  Iowa 
existed  in  large  part  only  on  paper,  the  chief 
duties  of  the  professor  of  chemistry  were  under- 
stood to  be  in  connection  with  the  state  geo- 
logical survey. 

The  organization  of  the  Iowa  Survey  was 
easy-going  enough.  Hall,  also  professor  in  the 
State  University,  was  supposed  to  be  its  head 
—  a  position  which  Hall  was  glad  enough  to 
accept,  for  the  New  York  Assembly  had  made 


STATE   SURVEYS  151 

him  no  appropriation  for  three  years,  and  he 
had  been  keeping  the  breath  of  life  in  the  New 
York  Survey  at  his  own  private  expense.  But 
before  work  in  Iowa  got  under  way,  affairs  in 
New  York  took  a  turn  for  the  better ;  and  al- 
most at  the  same  time,  Hall  was  made  paleon- 
tologist to  the  Canada  Survey.  Among  the 
three,  Hall  was  able  to  give  at  most  but  a 
quarter  of  his  time  to  Iowa ;  so  that  Whitney, 
nominally  only  chemist  to  the  survey,  became 
practically  its  working  head.  The  two  geolo- 
gists arranged  between  them  that  Hall  should 
look  out  for  the  general  geology  and  the  pale- 
ontology, while  Whitney  should  pay  special 
attention  to  the  lead  region  in  the  northeastern 
part  of  the  state,  where  he  had  already  done 
privately  a  considerable  amount  of  work.  They 
agreed  besides  that,  setting  off  Whitney's  time 
against  Hall's  experience,  the  two  should  work 
on  terms  of  precise  equality  and  make  their 
report  jointly.  The  Governor,  however,  James 
W.  Grimes,  persisted  in  regarding  Whitney  as 
an  analytical  chemist  hired  by  Hall. 

Added  to  these  causes  of  friction  was  the 
happy-go-lucky  character  of  Iowa  finances.  An 
appropriation  by  the  legislature  of  funds  still 
to  be  discovered,  supplemented  by  a  warrant 
from  the  Governor  on  an  empty  treasury,  was 
available  only  as  security  on  which  to  borrow 


152        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

actual  cash  at  fifteen  per  cent  interest.  The 
assistants  loaned  to  one  another ;  the  principals 
advanced  their  private  means.  Whoever  was 
lucky  enough  to  catch  the  state  treasurer  with 
funds  on  hand,  divided  with  his  colleague  as 
his  natural  generosity  prompted,  or  as  the  ne- 
cessities of  his  subordinates  allowed.  Under 
these  exasperating  conditions,  it  was  only  by 
Whitney's  justness  and  Hall's  tact  that  the 
two  men  managed  to  get  through  their  five 
years'  work  together  with  no  very  serious 
clashes  of  temper  or  opinion.  As  it  was,  the 
friendship  which  had  begun  in  the  wilds  of 
Lake  Superior  never  advanced  beyond  the 
stage  which  it  had  reached  in  1855. 

The  lead  district,  concerning  which  Whitney 
had  made  himself  a  recognized  authority,  lies 
more  in  Wisconsin  than  in  Iowa  or  Illinois. 
Hardly,  then,  was  the  field  work  in  Iowa  out 
of  the  way,  when  Wisconsin  reorganized  its 
geological  survey,  putting  it  under  three  com- 
missioners of  whom  Hall  was  chief.  Ezra  S. 
Carr  and  Edward  Daniels  were  the  other  two 
members;  and  the  bill,  of  March,  1857,  speci- 
fied that  they  were  to  employ  Whitney  to  com- 
plete the  survey  of  the  lead  district  within  the 
state,  which  Daniels,  and  after  him  J.  G.  Perci- 
val,  had  begun.  "  The  arrangement,"  wrote 
Whitney,  "  seems  to  me  the  poorest  and  most 


STATE   SURVEYS  153 

wastefully  inefficient  one  which  could  be  de- 
vised." Of  the  finances  of  the  Wisconsin  Sur- 
vey one  gets  a  hint  in  the  fact  that  poor  Hall, 
who  soon  became  its  single  head,  never  so 
much  as  recovered  the  money  which  he  had 
advanced  for  his  expenses. 

Following  close  on  the  completion  of  the 
Wisconsin  Survey,  Amos  H.  Worthen,  who 
had  been  an  assistant  in  Iowa  but  was  now 
state  geologist  of  Illinois,  employed  his  old 
chief  —  to  whom  indeed  he  owed,  in  part,  his 
promotion  —  to  report  on  so  much  of  the  lead 
district  as  lay  within  his  new  territory.  In  these 
several  ways,  Whitney,  though  nominally  em- 
ployed successively  by  three  different  states, 
in  reality  made  a  continuous  survey  of  a  single 
district,  and  between  overlapping  of  work  and 
delay  in  getting  out  reports,  really  worked  for 
all  three  states  at  once.  His  contracts  with  the 
states,  moreover,  allowed  him  to  undertake  a 
reasonable  quantity  of  outside  work,  so  that  in 
addition  to  his  lectures  in  the  University  —  a 
perfunctory  labor  in  the  existing  condition  of 
the  institution — he  continued  to  act  from  time 
to  time  as  mining  expert.  In  addition,  he  de- 
voted some  months  during  the  years  1855  and 
1856  to  the  mineral  collections  of  Union  Col- 
lege at  Schenectady,  where  his  old  friend  Joy, 
who  had  been  with  him  on  the  New  Hampshire 


154        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

and  Lake  Superior  surveys,  in  Jackson's  labo- 
ratory and  at  Clover  Den,  was  now  professor 
of  chemistry.  Here,  besides  arranging  the 
specimens  which  the  college  already  possessed, 
he  negotiated  the  purchase,  through  the  gift  of 
a  patron,  of  the  valuable  Wheatly  collection. 
This  also  he  labeled  and  displayed. 

Whitney,  therefore,  so  far  from  settling  down 
to  the  quiet  life  of  a  university  professor,  con- 
tinued the  roving  existence  of  the  days  before 
his  marriage.  His  headquarters  were  at  North- 
ampton, where  he  kept  his  books  and  did  his 
winter  work.  During  the  field  season,  he  flitted 
back  and  forth,  overseeing  his  assistants,  ex- 
amining mines,  lecturing  at  the  University, 
and  whenever  he  had  a  few  spare  days,  stop- 
ping over  at  Union  to  work  at  the  collections 
there.  At  Northampton,  during  the  winters,  the 
Whitneys  boarded,  sometimes  at  the  family 
mansion,  sometimes  at  the  village  hotel,  the 
Mansion  House.  For  habitation,  they  had  also 
three  rooms  over  a  down-town  store,  one  fitted 
as  an  office,  library,  and  living-room,  another 
equipped  as  a  chemical  laboratory,  and  the  third 
used  as  a  storeroom.  Here,  in  "  the  Bookery, 
the  Cookery,  and  the  Rookery,"  during  five 
years  Whitney  made  his  analyses,  consulted  his 
authorities,  and  wrote  his  reports. 

These  years,  outwardly  tame  enough,  brought 


STATE   SURVEYS  155 

a  considerable  development  of  Whitney's  ideas 
on  theoretical  matters,  especially  on  the  origin 
of  metalliferous  veins.  With  this  went,  natu- 
rally, a  series  of  scientific  papers,  printed  for  the 
most  part  in  the  "  American  Journal  of  Sci- 
ence," of  which  his  friend  Dana  was  editor.  The 
time  brought  also  a  gratifying  increase  of  pro- 
fessional reputation.  Its  end  saw  him,  at  forty, 
member  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Chicago 
Academies  of  Science,  and  of  the  Societe  geo- 
logique  de  France. 

With  honors  came  also  friendships  —  with 
Rev.  Theodore  Parker,  "the  only  man  from 
whom  he  ever  borrowed  a  book,"  whom  Whit- 
ney had  long  admired  and  came  to  know 
through  their  common  friend  Desor;  with 
Rev.  Eliphalet  Nott,  sixty  years  President  of 
Union  College,  whom  Whitney  came  to  know 
when  Dr.  Nott,  though  already  past  eighty, 
had  still  ten  years  of  work  before  him.  The 
affection  of  these  two  eminent  clergymen  bears 
witness  to  the  personal  qualities  of  the  young 
man  of  science. 

TO  HIS  WIFE 

SCHENECTADY,  April '2,  1856. 

DEAREST  PEASY,  —  I  got  here  last  night  just 
three  minutes  before  the  Tuesday,  on  which  I 
promised  to  arrive,  had  ceased  to  exist;  went 


156        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

to  bed  and  slept  like  a  top :  got  up  this  morn- 
ing at  6*4,  breakfasted  at  7,  smoked  a  cigar, 
cleaned  up  goniometer,  unpacked,  packed  up, 
got  my  trunk  from  express  office,  all  before 
Joy  and  Frau  came  down  to  breakfast.  I  soon 
ascertained  that  this  was  to  be  a  great  day  at 
the  College.  The  Herr  Graf  von  Peissner  (if 
his  name  is  thus  spelt — if  not,  try  Pizener,) 
was  to  lead  to  the  altar  the  fair  and  accom- 
plished, etc.,  daughter  of  our  distinguished 
professor  and  fellow  citizen,  Tayler  Lewis 
(don't  spell  Tayler  with  an  O),  etc.  So  Joy 
drew  himself  on  in  Schniefel,  etc.,  all  prepared 
to  go  to  the  ceremony,  his  Frau  promising  to 
follow  after  us,  in  an  hour  or  so,  in  festive 
attire.  As  for  myself,  not  calculating  on  any 
invitation,  or  any  acceptance  of  any  on  my  part 
if  it  came,  I  had  on  my  Northampton  pants, 
also  my  coat  with  ventilating  button-holes. 

Thus  accoutred  we  went  up  to  the  College 
and  found  the  treasurer,  examined  the  building 
appropriated  to  the  mineral  collections,  looked 
at  the  outside  of  about  300  boxes  of  minerals 
now  stored  in  the  garret,  consulted  about  plans 
for  shelves,  etc.  Then  went  into  Dr.  Nott's 
house,  found  the  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Nott  all  ready 
to  go  to  the  wedding.  They  both  received  me 
very  cordially.  The  Dr.  insisted  on  my  going 
with  him  (he  was  to  perform  the  ceremony). 


STATE   SURVEYS  157 

He  even  did  me  the  honor  to  request  the  sup- 
port of  my  arm  to  the  house  of  Prof.  Lewis.  Of 
course  I  had  to  go,  and  might  have  been  seen, 
a  short  time  since,  in  the  pantaloons  aforesaid 
and  the  buttonholes  aforesaid,  escorting  the 
venerable  Doctor  up  to  the  house  of  a  man 
whom  I  had  never  seen,  to  meet  a  crowd  of 
people  I  never  before  heard  of. 

However,  as  I  had  acquired  considerable 
interest  in  the  bride  and  bridegroom  from 
Dr.  Robinson's  highly  romantic  story  of  their 
courtship,  I  was  not  unwilling  to  see  the  fun, 
half  thinking  that  the  "  nobleman  in  disguise  " 
would  in  the  midst  of  the  ceremony,  astonish 
the  Schenectadians  by  throwing  off  his  cloak 
and  revealing  his  majestic  figure  covered  with 
diamond-set  decorations  and  grand  cordons, 
announcing  his  intention  of  carrying  his  bride 
to  take  possession  of  the  Stammschloss  of  the 
immortal  Potzdonnerwetter^  to  which  illustrious 
family  he  then  and  there  announced  that  he 
belonged.  Nothing  of  the  sort,  however,  oc- 
curred. The  bride  looked  very  pretty  and  very 
pale  according  to  all  the  rules.  She  had  on 
—  I  '11  put  a  separate  note  for  her  costume, 
if  I  can  find  time  to  write  it.  Dr.  Nott  per- 
formed the  ceremony  with  much  real  feeling 
and  admirable  simplicity  and  earnestness  of 
manner. 


158        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 


TO  HIS  WIFE 
MUSCATINE,  IOWA,  April  21,  1856. 

DEAREST  PEASY,  —  Our  boat  left  Burlington 
yesterday  forenoon  at  about  1 1  o'clock  and  was 
until  10  at  night  getting  up  to  this  place.  Con- 
found the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi !  It  is 
the  most  patience-trying  institution  I  know  of. 
The  quantity  of  freight  that  was  rolled  on  and 
off  our  boat  (professing  to  be  exclusively  a 
passenger  boat)  was  truly  wonderful.  ...  The 
coffee  has  that  same  detestable  smell  which  is 
so  intimately  associated  in  my  memory  with 
the  backwoods  of  the  United  States,  from 
North  to  South.  What  can  it  be  ?  You  know 
the  famous  railroad  to  Iowa  city  was  opened 
during  the  winter.  .  .  .  The  rails  are  in  some 
places  unfathomably  deep  in  the  mud.  The 
locomotive  (I  cannot  say  whether  it  is  the  only 
one  on  the  road)  looked  funny  enough  splashed 
with  yellow  clay  from  cow-catcher  to  spark-ar- 
rester. The  trains  are  from  twelve  to  twenty- 
four  hours  coming  through — distance  thirty 
miles  or  so.  It  would  be  better  to  go  in  a  buggy ; 
but  the  river  is  so  high,  that  you  can't  get  at  it, 
to  cross  it. 

I  collected  a  fine  lot  of  coal  plants  this 
morning.  .  .  .  Some  of  the  stems  of  Sigillaria 
(tree-ferns)  are  the  largest  I  have  ever  seen. 


STATE   SURVEYS  159 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BOOKERY,  March  13, 1856. 

.  .  .  My  occupations  this  winter  have  been 
highly  monotonous.  From  morning  to  night 
have  I  oxed  over  the  analyses  of  sundry  lime- 
stones, zinc,  iron,  and  lead  ores,  etc.,  for  the 
Iowa  Survey.  In  a  few  days,  all  I  laid  out  for 
this  winter's  work  will  be  finished.  Not  a  penny 
of  funds  has  yet  come  from  the  West,  nor  have 
I  received  any  answers  to  my  letters  to  Hall 
asking  him  for  information  as  to  what  was  to  be 
done.  I  am  inclined  to  start  for  Iowa,  borrow- 
ing some  money,  if  I  can  get  from  the  Gover- 
nor an  assurance  that  the  money  will  be  forth- 
coming eventually ;  that  is  to  say,  sometime  in 
the  course  of  the  actual  geological  epoch  —  the 
reign  of  men  and  monkeys.  .  .  . 

TO    HIS    FATHER 

SCHENECTADY,  May,  1856. 

.  .  .  When  I  went  out  we  had  received  only 
$1000  of  the  $5000  appropriated  for  the  sur- 
vey. Of  the  balance,  Mr.  Hall  had  a  warrant 
for  $1500  which  they  had  been  promising  to 
payever  since  last  fall;  that  left  $2500, still  lia- 
ble to  be  drawn.  As  they  did  not  seem  to  be 
likely  to  pay  Hall's  draft,  and  much  less  any  of 
the  other  $2500,  it  seemed  to  me  absolutely 


160        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

necessary  that  I  should  go  out  and  make  a  per- 
sonal attack  on  the  treasury.  Mr.  Hall  agreed 
to  the  propriety  of  the  course;  and  promised 
that,  as  soon  as  he  received  the  money  on  the 
$1500  draft,  he  would  let  me  have  half  of  it.  ... 

I  could  only  raise  $500  which  I  immediately 
forwarded  to  you,  thinking  that  with  that  sum 
and  the  #750,  which  I  supposed  Hall  would 
hand  over,  I  should  be  able  to  pay  my  debts  and 
that  I  could  raise  some  money  at  Burlington 
for  going  on  with  the  survey. 

.  .  .  To  crown  all,  Mr.  Worthen  came  up 
from  Warsaw  to  take  the  field  without  any 
money,  saying  that  Mr.  Hall  had  written  him 
that  I  would  supply  him  with  money  while  we 
were  together.  The  question  then  with  me  was, — 
shall  I  let  the  survey  go  to  the  bugs  and  return 
home  immediately,  and  leave  Mr.  Worthen  to 
get  his  money  when  he  can  and  be  a  month  be- 
fore he  takes  the  field,  and  then  only  in  a  crip- 
pled way;  or  shall  I  advance  him  the  money,  and 
start  him  out  with  a  suitable  team,  so  that  the 
survey  might  not  come  to  a  dead  stop  ?  I  decided 
to  do  the  latter :  so  I  drew  on  you  for  #300. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SCHENECTADY,  May  22,  1856. 

.  .  .  The  collection  here  is  now  all  unpacked, 
and  a  great  lot  of  rubbish  it  is.  The  meanness 


STATE   SURVEYS  161 

of  the  collection  furnished  by  the  State  Min- 
eralogist is  beyond  description.  Not  even  quartz 
is  represented  by  a  decent  crystal,  and  there  is  not 
a  specimen  which  I  would  have  in  my  cabinet. 
The  best  things  in  the  College  cabinet  are  from 
the  Bristol  [Connecticut]  mine.  There  are  a  few 
good  specimens  from  Nova  Scotia  and  now  and 
then  a  decent  mineral  picked  up  or  given  by 
somebody.  At  least  two  thirds  are  useless.  I 
shall  throw  away  about  one  third  and  save  an- 
other third  for  the  boys  to  work  on.  I  hope  to  be 
through  in  two  or  three  weeks.  ...  I  am  stay- 
ing at  the  Doctor's  [Nott]  and  find  it  quite 
pleasant.  .  .  . 

MRS.    WHITNEY   TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SCHENECTADY, /##<?  7,  1856. 

...  I  would  have  come  barefoot  with  scrip  and 
shell  and  staff  to  this  place  to  do  reverence  to 
Dr.  Nott.  He  is  even  more  benevolent  and  un- 
selfish than  your  grandfather,  with  far,  far  more 
talent,  breadth  of  range,  and  depth  of  thought. 
He  is  an  improved  St.  John  —  as  much  love 
and  more  brains.  You  may  imagine  how  my 
veneration,  which  I  am  generally  obliged  to 
feed  with  a  Barmecide  dinner  of  abstracts  and 
ideals,  flaps  her  wings  and  exults.  I  am  perpet- 
ually on  my  knees  before  this  shining  reality 
of  worth. 


162        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Mrs.  Trollope  says  Schenectady  is  the  only 
finished  town  in  America!  It  is  gone  to  seed, 
quaint  and  asleep,  and  made  up  of  low  broad 
Dutch  houses  and  trees,  under  whose  heavy 
foliage  grass  and  toad-stools  spring  up  in  the 
streets.  The  College  grounds  are  the  most 
charming  I  have  seen  in  America  or  anywhere 
— so  characteristic  of  the  place,  half  Dutch  and 
half  rural.  .  .  . 

You  look  down  over  clumps  of  low,  broad 
trees,  to  the  Valley  of  the  Mohawk,  and  beyond, 
to  low,  broad  ranges  of  hills.  Nature  and  Art 
are  both  in  the  Dutch  style.  Great  woods,  nurs- 
ery gardens,  old  shaded  parks  and  pine  banks 
lie  behind  the  buildings,  and  there  is  a  most 
extensive  college  garden  in  the  English  style, 
quite  old  and  kept  up  at  a  good  deal  of  expense, 
with  winding  walks,  shrubberies,  shaven  slopes, 
spreading  elms,  and  a  wide,  clear,  tumbling  brook 
rushing  about  in  every  direction  under  any  num- 
ber of  little,  shaded  bridges.  The  professors  live 
in  large,  comfortable  houses  in  the  College 
buildings.  It  is  n't  necessary  here  to  marry  heir- 
esses for  a  living,  since  living  is  too  cheap  to 
make  it  worth  while  to  accept  it  almost.  Mrs. 
Joy  is  going  to  have  for  a  servant  the  Dutch 
Lutheran  clergyman's  sister-in-law!  So  you 
see  how  respectable  and  economical  all  the  best 
society  here  find  it  convenient  to  be. 


STATE  SURVEYS  163 


TO    HIS    SISTER  ELIZABETH,  NOW   MRS.    OSGOOD 

PUTNAM 
NORTHAMPTON,  December  17,  1856. 

.  .  .  The  Baby  weighed  eight  and  a  half 
pounds  at  birth,  and  has  gone  up  to  ten  pounds 
in  the  first  fortnight.  She  has  very  dark  and 
full  eyes  which  shine  brilliantly,  especially  when 
she  is  crying  for  her  supper.  .  .  .  Whom  she 
looks  like  nobody  knows;  but  all  agree  that 
she  is  a  "  beautiful  baby."  She  appears  to  have 
her  mother's  temperament ;  but  is,  so  far  as  can 
be  seen,  perfectly  healthy.  .  .  .  The  baby's 
name  is  Eleanor  Goddard,  after  her  Aunt,  Mrs. 
May,  whom  you  remember  about.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  My  movements  are  rather  uncertain. 
Some  people  are  very  anxious  that  I  should  go 
to  Mexico,  and  I  may  perhaps  conclude  to  go. 
Louisa  feels  very  bad  at  the  idea  of  my  being 
away  so  much  (I  have  just  returned  from  Iowa), 
but  my  profession  is  one  that  requires  that  I 
should  be  on  the  go.  There  is  everything  to 
make  the  expedition  to  Mexico  attractive ;  bar- 
ring the  separation  from  Louisa,  and  the  dan- 
ger which  of  course  one  undergoes  of  being 
robbed.  .  .  . 

Father  appears  uncommonly  well  this  win- 
ter. He  comes  down  to  my  office  every  after- 
noon when  I  am  in  town  and  reads  his  paper. 


164        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

.  .  .  When  I  get  fairly  to  Mexico,  and  he  ... 
has  you  in  California,  and  Will  and  Maria  in 
Europe,  and  besides  Ed  in  New  York  and 
James  in  New  Haven,  not  to  speak  of  Sarah 
down  in  Connecticut,  won't  he  be  busy  as  a  bee 
in  keeping  up  the  correspondence ! 

TO  E.  DESOR 

NORTHAMPTON,  December  30,  1856. 

MON  CHER  AMI, —  Right  glad  I  was  to  see 
your  well-known  handwriting,  yesterday  .  .  . 
it  seemed  a  long  time  since  I  had  heard  from 
you.  When  I  wrote  you  last,  I  was  in  Iowa, 
where  I  only  remained  a  few  weeks ;  and  then 
returned  to  Boston,  where  my  wife  was  staying, 
and  with  her  went  to  Union  College  at  Sche- 
nectady,  N.  Y.,  where  I  spent  a  part  of  the 
summer  arranging  the  college  collection  of 
minerals  and  fossils,  and  having  a  very  pleasant 
time  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  Professors 
there.  Joy,  whom  you  perhaps  remember,  is 
there,  having  married  a  German  wife  not  long 
since.  After  finishing  at  Schenectady,  my  wife 
went  back  home,  and  I  ...  to  Iowa  again, 
where  I  spent  a  couple  of  months  only,  as  the 
weather  was  so  unfavorable  that  the  field  work 
had  to  be  closed  up  very  early.  I  never  knew 
such  a  season  at  the  West  before ;  it  was  like 
Lake  Superior  rather  than  Iowa. 


STATE   SURVEYS  165 

During  the  fall,  I  collected  in  the  Carbon- 
iferous beds,  principally,  and  also  made  some 
examination  in  the  coal  field  of  Illinois 

At  La  Salle  the  coal  measures  lie  directly 
on  Lower  Silurian  rocks,  which  come  up  there 
and  form  an  arch  two  or  three  miles  across. 
The  coal  lies  directly  on  Trenton  Limestone 
without  any  other  parting  than  a  seam  of  fine 
clay.  This  we  find  to  be  a  general  fact  with 
regard  to  the  coal  of  this  region.  It  lies  indis- 
criminately on  any  group  from  Lower  Silurian 
up  to  Mountain  Limestone;  but,  in  this  wise, 
that  the  farther  we  go  north,  the  greater  the 
hiatus.  So  we  find  the  coal  field  of  Iowa  to  be 
made  up  of  a  number  of  independent  basins 
quite  distinct  from  each  other,  instead  of  being 
in  one,  as  laid  down  by  Dr.  Owen.  The  same 
is  true  of  Illinois  probably.  I  have  collected  a 
good  many  facts  in  regard  to  the  mode  of  oc- 
currence of  the  lead  in  the  Northwest,  confirm- 
ing the  views  I  have  taken  in  the  "  Metallic 
Wealth "  as  to  the  character  of  the  veins. 
When  we  shall  publish  a  report,  I  do  not 
know  ;  probably  not  for  a  couple  of  years  yet. 
Out;  funds  have  been  so  .limited  in  amount  and 
hard  to  get  at,  that  but  little  has  been  accom- 
plished. Hall  has  done  nothing  for  Iowa  this 
last  year;  he  has  been  sick  a  good  deal.  In- 
deed it  is  doubtful  whether  another  appropria- 


166        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

tion  is  made  for  our  survey.  .  .  .  Really,  under 
the  present  organization  I  do  not  much  care  if 
the  whole  thing  is  dropped. 

My  thoughts  have  been  turned  toward  Mexico 
lately.  A  party  in  New  York  owning  a  large 
grant  of  land  on  the  Pacific  coast,  is  anxious  to 
have  it  explored.  They  applied  to  me  last  Sep- 
tember, but  I  could  not  go,  .  .  .  so  they  sent  on 
a  large  party  and  wish  me  to  join  them  as  soon 
as  I  can.  .  .  .  Of  course,  it  would  be  very  pleas- 
ant to  see  Mexico,  and  very  certainly  profitable 
in  a  scientific  point  of  view ;  but  the  question  is 
whether  traveling  there  is  not  too  hazardous  to 
make  it  worth  while  for  a  man  with  a  family  to 
go  off.  Now  if  I  were  a  bachelor,  like  some  of  my 
friends,  I  might  rush  off  to  the  tropics  or  the 
north  pole,  and  nobody  would  care  a  copper 
whether  I  ever  came  back  or  not ;  but  with  a 
wife  and  baby  at  home,  look  you,  that  makes  a 
grand  difference. 

You  say  that  "next  to  a  good  wife  there  is 
nothing  like  an  urchin" — query,  urchin,  a 
boy;  or  urchin  [Desor's  specialty],  a  sea  crea- 
ture ?  My  urchin,  however,  has  turned  out  to 
be  a  girl,  much  to  her  mother's  delight.  When 
Mrs.  W.  writes  you  next,  she  will  no  doubt  fill 
the  sheet  with  praises  of  her  baby;  so  I  will 
not  say  a  word.  .  .  . 

...  I  meant  to  have  written  you  about  the 


STATE   SURVEYS  167 

Albany  meeting  [of  the  American  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  in  August] 
but  put  it  off  from  day  to  day  until  it  seemed 
that  any  thing  on  the  subject  would  be  old 
news.  There  were  unusually  many  geologists 
present.  Almost  all,  in  fact,  of  any  particular 
note  except  Dr.  Owen.  A  good  deal  of  inter- 
esting matter  was  brought  forward.  Emmons 
had  a  magnificent  collection  of  new  fossils, 
saurians  and  the  like,  —  from  the  so-called 
"  New  Red  Sandstone  "  of  North  Carolina.  It 
was  the  most  curious,  striking  set  of  fossils 
ever  got  together  in  this  country,  as  was  de- 
clared by  the  paleontologists  present.  Nobody 
knew  much  about  them.  Rogers  made  a  sen- 
sation with  his  trilobites  from  near  Boston. 
Dawson,  from  Canada,  makes  a  very  favorable 
impression  on  all  as  a  man  of  great  ability :  he 
and  Agassiz  had  a  set-to  on  the  subject  of  the 
unity  of  the  human  race.  .  .  .  Lesley  gave  a 
description  of  the  Broad  Top  coal  field  and 
pitched  into  Rogers's  theories  and  facts  with- 
out mercy.  .  .  . 

A  great  deal  of  information  was  brought  out 
-on  the  subject  of  the  geology  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  and  Rocky  Mountain  region  from  Blake 
(W.  P.),  Dr.  Parry,  who  was  on  the  Mexican 
Boundary  Survey,  Mr.  Schott  on  the  River  Gila 
region,  Dr.  Newberry  on  the  Pacific  Railroad 


1 68        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

corps.  Blake  has  the  task  of  putting  into  shape 
the  observations  of  the  Pacific  Railroad  corps. 

He  also  read  a  review  of  M 's  geological 

map,  which  was  followed  by  some  sharp  remarks 
of  various  persons,  not  very  complimentary  to 

Mr.  M .  What  an  extraordinary  production 

that  map  of  his  is !  How  could  it  get  itself  pub- 
lished in  so  many  forms  in  Europe  ?  Wosthen 
exhibited  his  collection  of  fish  teeth  from  the 
Mountain  Limestone- at  Warsaw;  he  has  hun- 
dreds of  teeth,  like  the  one  you  found. 

Agassiz  treated  us  to  an  embryological  de- 
monstration of  the  existence  of  a  personal  God. 
.  .  .  The  Association  came,  hear  voting  to  print 
all  the  sermons  preached  in  Albany  during  the 
session.  Also  the  first  thing  on  the  programme 
was  to  assemble  at  a  church  in  the  city  and  have 
religious  exercises!!  Oh,  Potzdonnerwetter ! 
How  pious  we  are  getting  in  this  nation  of  fili- 
busters, slave-holders,  and  speculators  (i.e.  swin- 
dlers). There  were  some  flare-ups  at  the  Albany 
meeting,  causing  a  good  deal  of  excitement  and 
some  fun  to  the  outsiders.  Hall  did  not  know 
how  to  manage  in  the  chair,  and  by  his  absurd 
ruling,  put  everything  into  confusion.  I  am  glad 
to  say  that  the  democratic  party  carried  the  day 
against  Bache,  Henry,  and  the  Cam  bridge  clique 
in  the  matter  of  a  revisal  of  the  constitution, 
which  has  been  so  often  up  for  discussion,  and 


STATE   SURVEYS  '  169 

as  uniformly  staved  off  by  the  Bache  and  Co. 
party.  .  .  . 

My  brother,  the  red-headed  "  good  fellow  of 
Will,"  as  you  once  called  him,  was  married  a 
few  months  since  to  the  daughter  of  an  ex-gov- 
ernor of  Connecticut:  and  with  her  and  my  sis- 
ter Maria  went  to  Europe  in  October.  ...  I 
hope  you  will  see  them.  If  you  ever  see  the 
"  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society " 
which  Will  edits  in  connection  with  Prof.  Salis- 
bury, you  will  find  occasional  articles  by  him.  .  .  . 
Your  work  on  the  echinoderms  pleases  me 
greatly ;  the  illustrations  are  indeed  exquisite. 

I  wish  you  would  tell  me  more  of  your  per- 
sonal situation  in  Neufchatel  —  how  you  live, 
and  all  that.  Of  your  political  affairs,  we  hear 
but  little  on  this  side  of  the  water ;  and  I  have 
but  a  vague  idea  what  is  going  on  among  you. 
.  .  .  How  much  I  should  like  to  talk  a  while 
with  you!  and  shall  I  ever  have  that  pleasure? 
.  .  .  Mrs.  Whitney  sends  her  best  love. 
Good-bye  until  next  time. 

J.  D.  WHITNEY. 

DR.    ELIPHALET    NOTT   TO    JOSIAH    D.    WHITNEY 
UNION  COLLEGE,  March  25,  1857. 
DEAR  SIR,  —  I  have  heard  in  such  a  way  that 
you  have  made  a  visit  to  Bristol  [Connecticut] 
that  I  suppose  it  must  be  so.  If  it  is,  will  you 


170        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

give  me  (confidentially,  if  you  prefer)  your  frank 
and  explicit  opinions  as  to  the  existing  state  and 
future  prospects  of  the  mine. 

I  have  met  with  such  and  so  many  grievous 
losses  myself  lately,  that  I  have  .come  to  place 
my  chief  reliance  on  Bristol  (which  hitherto  I 
had  not  much  regarded)  for  my  support.  If  there 
is  no  foundation  for  this  reliance  (tho  sad  to 
know  it),  it  is  best  I  should  know  it;  and  I  ask 
you  therefore,  if  you  know,  to  tell  me  the  simple 
truth.  I  had  hoped  to  see  you  here  before  this, 
and  still  hope  to  do  so.  If  it  is  lawful  in  the  law 
of  the  Puritans  to  do  so,  give  my  sincere  love 
to  your  wife  and  the  young  immortal  committed 
to  her  care.  May  God  bless  both  you  and  them. 

Very  truly  yours, 

E.  NOTT. 

Mrs.  Nott  is  out  of  town,  or  she  would  have 
corrected  this ;  and  added  I  presume  a  note  of 
her  own.  Indeed  I  would  have  written  more  and 
better  myself.  But  I  am  sick  —  and  sad  —  to-day 
—  more  so  than  a  wise  man  and  especially  a 
Christian  man  ought  to  be. 

The  following  letter  to  William  Whitney  was 
written  after  Josiah  Whitney  with  his  wife  had 
been  attending  the  meeting  of  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  at 
Montreal. 


STATE   SURVEYS  171 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

NORTHAMPTON,  August  20,  1857. 

.  .  .  We  were  all  glad  to  hear  such  good  news 
from  the  baby  and  his  mother.  .  .  .  We  expect 
every  day  to  hear  that  the  Governor  announces 
his  determination  to  go  to  New  Haven  and  see 
through  his  own  spectacles  the  young  prince. 
Connecticut  Railroad  stock  has  slightly  risen, 
in  consequence  of  the  promise  of  increased 
travel  princeward.  .  .  . 

We  found  Montreal  crowded,  the  hotels 
poor  and  jammed.  Seventeen  ladies  slept  on 
the  floor  of  the  dining  room  and  parlor  .  .  . 
the  night  before  we  got  there.  We  thought  our- 
selves lucky  to  get  a  room  about  as  big  as  a 

bandbox The  geological  part  of  the  meeting 

was  intensely  Canadian;  Logan,  Hunt,  Daw- 
son,  and  Hall  had  put  their  heads  together  to 
puff  Canada,  and  snub  everything  and  every- 
body else.  I  did  not  get  to  the  section  in  time  to 
hear  Logan's  paper  on  the  Azoic,  or  I  would 
have  replied  to  it.  He  did  not,  so  far  as  I  can 
learn,  answer  my  arguments;  but  contented 
himself  with  his  ipsedixit,  backed  by  Hall,  who 
has  never  seen  anything  of  the  rocks  in  ques- 
tion. They  had  it  all  their  own  way.  Hall  was 
savage  on  Dana,  Rogers,  and  myself,  in  his 
address  as  retiring  president.  We  left  partly  on 


i;2        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

account  of  our  miserable  accommodations, 
partly  on  account  of  the  expense,  and  more 
because  I  was  quite  unwell,  being  troubled 
with  a  headache  which  I  could  not  get  rid  of 
although  I  starved  myself  for  three  days.  Com- 
ing back  by  Lake  George  we  had  the  most 
charming  weather.  Louisa  enjoyed  it  much. 
Let  me  hear  of  what  you  are  doing  in  the 

way  of  orientalizing.  Your  L is  clean  daft 

on  the  subject  of  the  ark. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

NORTHAMPTON,  March  2,  1859. 

...  I  hear  that  a  small  appropriation  has 
been  made  for  a  survey  in  Michigan.  Joy  has 
been  writing  for  me  to  the  Governor,  and  I  have 
also  written  myself  and  think  it  not  impossible 
that  the  place  may  be  offered  to  me,  although 
not  by  any  means  sanguine  about  it.  I  lecture 
a  week  from  Thursday.  Subject:  "  Science,  and 
Humboldt  as  its  Representative  Man."  Will 
that  do  for  a  title  ?  I  have  the  lecture  nearly 
written  and  will  send  it  to  you  to  read  if  you 
wish,  after  it  is  off  my  hands  and  delivered. 

.  .  .  [F.  A.]  Genth  writes  me  from  Phila- 
delphia that  he  has  discovered  a  new  mineral, 
which  he  proposes  to  call  Whitneyite ;  it  is  an 
arsenid  of  copper,  —  Cu9  As2  —  quite  interest- 
ing; the  most  singular  thing  about  it  is,  that  I 


STATE  SURVEYS  173 

found  the  same  thing  at  the  Minnesota  Mine 
and  analyzed  it  at  the  mine  so  far  as  to  make 
it  out  to  be  probably  new.  But  the  specimen 
was  lost  in  some  mysterious  way,  and  I  have 
never  been  able  to  find  it,  although  I  hunted 
well  for  it.  Fate  seems  to  have  destined  it  to 
be  named  after  me. 

Genth,  who  had  been  at  Marburg  under 
Bunsen  when  Whitney  was  less  than  twenty 
miles  away  at  Giessen,  was  an  authority  on 
copper ;  and  "  your-humble-servantite  "  at  once 
took  its  place  among  the  few  score  minerals 
which  bear  the  names  of  men.  It  is  an  uncom- 
mon substance.  Genth  made  the  determination 
on  a  few  ounces,  and  Whitney  himself  had 
only  "  a  piece  as  big  as  a  pin-head  to  swear 
by." 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

March  28,  1859. 

.  .  .  The  Michigan  Survey  was  given  to 
one  of  the  professors  of  the  Michigan  Univer- 
sity. They  write  me  that  it  was  a  Methodist 
movement,  getting  up  the  survey.  Probably 
the  Governor  had  a  vague  idea  it  was  a  theo- 
logical survey  he  was  organizing,  and  not  a 
geological  one.  Well,  I  hope  the  State  Geolo- 
gist will  not  republish  our  work  without  giving 
us  some  credit,  at  least. 


1/4        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

MINERAL  POINT,  WISCONSIN,  May  27,  1859. 
...  I  have  just  come  in  from  a  nice  trip 
through  the  country  west  of  this  place,  a 
splendid  farming  region,  rich  rolling  prairie, 
with  plenty  of  groves  of  timber  scattered  through 
it ;  ledges  of  rock  handy,  and  no  stones  scattered 
over  the  soil  —  those  dornicks  which  dull  the 
New  England  husbandman's  tools  so  effectu- 
ally. At  Wingville,  I  made  another  bone  dis- 
covery— -a  tooth  of  a  Mastodon,  taken  55  feet 
deep,  and  more  to  be  had  by  digging,  I  hope. 
Yesterday,  however,  came  one  of  those  very 
severe  days  which  make  the  geologist's  life  not 
so  easy  a  one.  The  whole  forenoon  I  spent  in 
floundering,  wriggling,  writhing,  creeping  and 
crawling  through  the  mud  holes  of  an  extensive 
and  interesting,  but  intolerably  uncomfortable 
mine,  whereof  my  bones  are  all  aching  and  my 
flesh  battered.  Coming  out  a  mass  of  wet  mud 
with  a  human  being  encased  in  it,  the  said 
human  was  further  inhumanly  treated  by  being 
obliged  to  ride  20  miles  over  a  road,  which  was 
for  all  the  world  like  the  mine  with  its  top  cut 
off,  and  a  driving  northeast  storm  of  rain  beating 
in  his  face  all  the  way,  and  washing  the  mud 
off  from  him  into  his  boots.  Was  n't  that  com- 
fortable ? 


STATE   SURVEYS  175 

On  Monday  I  start  for  Madison,  with  the 
object  of  making  a  vigorous  attack  on  the  State 
Treasurer;  the  results  remain  to  be  seen.  I 
would  rather  have  the  check  of  J.  D.  W.  Sen- 
ior on  the  Northampton  Bank,  than  a  warrant 
on  either  the  Wisconsin  or  Iowa  treasury. 

I  hear  such  lamentable  accounts  from  Louisa 
of  the  state  of  her  health,  that  I  take  but  little 
pleasure  in  being  out  here,  and  hardly  think 
that  I  shall  remain  beyond  July  ist;  but  if  she 
is  better,  I  may  come  out  again  in  the  Autumn. 

The  "  crevices  "  of  the  two  following  letters 
are  the  veins  of  lead  ore.  Each  of  these  had  to 
be  accurately  plotted  on  the  detailed  "  Crevice 
Map."  This  was  some  five  feet  square,  and  on 
a  scale  of  four  inches  to  the  mile. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

GALENA,  ILLINOIS,  October  9,  1859. 
.  .  .  Were  it  not  for  the  dust,  I  would  say 
nothing  could  surpass  the  last  ten  days,  just 
cool  enough  for  tramping  over  the  prairies 
among  the  crevices  ;  but  chilly  enough  at  night, 
when  one  huddles  dismally  over  the  little  stove 
in  the  stinking  bar-room,  by  an  unsnuffed  tal- 
low candle  not  giving  light  enough  to  see  to 
write  up  one's  notes  by,  and  going  to  bed  early 
just  to  keep  from  wearing  out  one's  eyes.  The 


1 76        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

work  of  laying  down  these  crevices  [on  the 
large  scale  map]  goes  on  slowly:  it  is  a  big  job 
and  demands  more  time.  To  my  surprise,  I 
find  the  people  rather  interested  in  the  matter, 
and  the  papers  have  kept  me  and  my  doings 
before  the  public  pretty  thoroughly.  The  whole 
organization  of  the  survey  is  a  peculiarly  un- 
fortunate one.  ...  If  I  had  said  a  word  to 
encourage  it,  there  would  have  been  petitions 
sent  in  from  all  over  the  lead  region,  this  win- 
ter, to  have  the  entire  survey  put  in  my  charge. 
Hall  would  not  object,  but  Carr  and  Daniels 
would  be  furious,  and  it  would  not  be  loyal  in 
me  to  take  any  step  of  that  kind,  under  the 
circumstances. 

I  have  been  traveling  this  last  week  among 
the  most  God-forsaken  people  I  ever  came 
across,  in  the  heart  of  the  mining  region,  the 
vilest,  dirtiest,  most  rascally  gang  a  man  could 
well  get  among.  ...  If  anything  can  stand 
lower  than  Wisconsin  does  in  point  of  honesty, 
I  wonder  where  it  is. 

[J.  P.]  Kimball  is  not  with  me  this  fall ;  as 
I  find  it  much  more  useful  to  hire  local  assis- 
tance, especially  the  surveyors  who  can  "  show 
me  the  corners,"  and  locate  the  diggings  on 
the  map.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Through  Schenectady  I  heard  to-day 
that  Mr.  Dana  had  gone  to  Europe.  ...  I 


STATE  SURVEYS  177 

shall  feel  quite  lost  without  him ;  but  he  has 
evidently  done  a  wise  thing.  .  .  . 

My  plans  are  to  be  at  home  early  in  Novem- 
ber, and  there  to  remain  until  the  Lead  Report 
is  done  with.  You  will  hardly  see  me  unless 
you  honor  me  with  your  presence  Christmas 
or  New  Year's;  though  I  don't  know  as  there 
will  be  any  this  year,  as  mother  is  only  going 
to  keep  a  small  girl  this  winter  and  no  cook. 
Never  mind,  call  up  at  the  Mansion  (not  the 
family  one),  and  we  will  feed  you  and  lodge 
you.  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

NORTHAMPTON,  December  22,  1859. 

The  work  I  have  in  hand  is  so  laborious 
that  I  shall  have  to  ox  diligently  to  get  through 
all  I  ought  to  accomplish,  and  there  are  forty 
other  things  to  be  finished  up.  I  stick  to  the 
office  pretty  closely,  coming  down  before  break- 
fast and  generally  leaving  at  10  P.  M.  Louisa 
thinks  that  I  am  rather  too  much  of  an  ox,  and 
drags  me  out  to  walk,  nolens  volens.  We  are 
blessed  with  the  finest  sleighing  I  ever  saw. 
About  a  foot  of  solid  snow  as  prettily  dis- 
tributed and  evenly  distributed  as  the  letters 
in  the  title  of  my  big  crevice  map,  which  I  look 
on  as  a  Kunststuck,  for  a  man  who  can't  print, 
that  is  to  say.  .  .  . 


i;8        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

NORTHAMPTON,  January  24,  1860. 

.  .  .  Friday  noon,  feeling  disposed  to  bum- 
ble, and  having  occasion  or  excuse  therefor  in 
the  necessity  of  getting  engravers'  estimates  on 
my  maps  ...  I  posted  to  Boston.  I  own  up 
to  the  fact  that  the  desire  to  see  Church's 
"Heart of  the  Andes  "  before  it  left  Boston  was 
a  strong  element  in  the  propelling  power  which 
set  me  going  in  that  direction.  .  .  . 

The  picture  of  Church's  was  an  "astonisher" 
to  me,  a  sort  of  new  revelation  in  landscape 
painting.  If  it  be  necessary  that  a  work  of  art 
to  be  great —  I  mean,  supremely  great —  should 
have  unity  and  produce  its  effect  as  a  whole, 
then  the  "  Heart  of  the  Andes  "is  perhaps  not 
to  be  placed  as  high  as  some  other  works.  But 
if  a  landscape  as  painted  is  to  produce  the  same 
effect  which  it  does  in  nature;  if  it  is,  like 
nature  herself,  to  bear  minute  examination  and 
repay  close  study  by  an  ever  new  revelation  of 
new  beauties,  to  confound  by  an  inexhaustible 
wealth  of  details,  to  dazzle  by  a  multiplicity  of 
effects,  then  Church's  picture  is  beyond  any- 
thing ever  yet  attempted.  You  could  cut  it  up 
into  a  gallery  of  landscapes,  just  as  you  might 
the  view  from  Red  Hill  [near  Lake  Winnepe- 
saukee,  N.  H.],  only  that  in  one  case  you  would 


STATE  SURVEYS  179 

have  every  kind  of  view  from  tropical  to  Alpine, 
while  in  the  other,  your  gallery  would  be  rather 
monotonously  "lake  and  wood"sy — lacking  the 
glacier,  the  tropical  profusion  of  animal  and  veg- 
etable life,  the  inexpressible  majesty  of  height, 
an  element  wanting  in  our  New  England  scen- 
ery. I  would  give  several  of  my  brightest  six- 
pences to  see  Brown's  collection  of  paintings 
now  exhibiting  at  New  York.  I  have  the  high- 
est opinion  of  his  ability.  .  .  . 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

MINERAL  POINT,  WISCONSIN,  May  28,  1860. 
You  will  be  moving  into  your  new  Palazzo 
presently,  I  suppose,  and  spreading  yourself  in 
a  locality  you  may  reasonably  expect  to  occupy 
for  some  considerable  time,  while  my  household 
gods  have  to  be  packed  in  saddle  bags.  I  think 
of  adopting  as  my  coat  of  arms,  a  tent,  with  a 


i8o        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

sinister  bend  in  the  top  (caused  by  weakness 
of  the  ridge-pole);  crest,  a  slice  of  pork  held  on 
a  fork,  what's  the  heraldic  slang  for  that?  "Sus, 
impaled  per  party  gules,"  I  guess  is  near  enough. 
Motto  — "  Ueberall  zu  Hause."  Let 's  see  how 
it  would  look.  Let  me  translate  the  Latin  in 
my  own  fashion.  "  He  seeks  among  the  rocks 
for  the  traces  of  primeval  monsters,"  which  I 
take  it  to  be  as  good  business  as  looking  around, 
sword  in  hand,  for  that  "  placid  rest  in  liberty," 
which  we  read  about,  but  don't  exactly  realize. 

Whitney  is  now  forty,  with  a  wife  and  child, 
but  with  no  settled  work  and  no  permanent 
habitation.  In  person  he  is  short  and  strongly 
built,  tough  and  enduring,  and  thoroughly 
inured  to  the  hardness  of  a  geologist's  life. 
Yet  with  all  his  rough  labor  he  is  fastidious 
enough  when  not  afield,  likes  clean  sheets  on 
his  bed  every  day,  and  objects  to  wiping  his 
hands  twice  on  the  same  towel.  At  table,  too, 
though  always  abstemious,  he  is  something  of 
an  epicure.  There  are  certain  professions  which 
compel  a  man  to  lead  a  double  life  in  matters 
of  toilet  and  fare ;  and  those  who  follow  them, 
when  they  leave  blankets  and  fried  pork, 
sometimes  react  violently.  In  addition  Whit- 
ney works  without  respite,  goes  to  bed  early 
and  sleeps  six  hours  a  night,  and  has  a  curious 


STATE   SURVEYS  181 

trick  —  to  be  justified  later  by  psychologists 
then  unborn  —  of  planning  his  day's  work  in 
bed  when  he  first  wakes  up. 

With  his  fortieth  year,  comes  to  an  end  the 
first  of  the  three  periods  into  which  his  life 
naturally  divides  itself.  He  has  been  by  turn 
chemist,  mining  expert,  geological  surveyor — 
but  never  the  single  head  of  a  survey.  From 
now  on,  he  is  to  be  a  geologist,  and  his  own 
master.  He  has  seen  geology  change  from  a 
chaos  of  speculation  into  a  coherent  science; 
and  geological  surveying  grow  from  an  avoca- 
tion of  physicians  and  chemists  and  amateurs, 
into  a  profession  for  the  well-trained  expert,  of 
whom  he  is  himself  among  the  first.  Now  he 
is  to  become  the  forerunner  of  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey,  whose  achievements 
are  to  be  the  nation's  worthiest  contribution 
to  science. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  BEGINNINGS   OF  THE   CALIFORNIA 
SURVEY.  1860  AND   1861 

THE  rush  of  the  Forty-niners  to  the  gold  fields 
of  California  and  Nevada  took  them  into  a 
region  rarely  visited  by  civilized  men,  un- 
mapped, and  except  for  the  main  outlines  of 
its  topography,  practically  unknown.  Dana  in 
1842  saw  something  of  the  country  on  his  way 
home  overland  from  the  bungled  and  ill-fated 
Wilkes  expedition  to  the  Antarctic;  and  Fre- 
mont's party  in  1843  and  1844  had  picked  up 
a  few  fossils,  which  Hall  described.  Philip  T. 
Tyson,  between  1849  and  1851,  explored  pri- 
vately the  gold  country;  and  the  California 
Senate  printed  his  report.  But  Tyson  was  a 
chemist,  for  whom  the  prospect  of  extracting 
wealth  from  quartz  veins  seemed  "altogether 
too  remote  and  uncertain  to  be  relied  on." 
Following  this,  from  1853  to  1856,  came  a 
state  survey  under  Trask.  Trask,  however, 
though  he  inspired  much  of  the  scientific  work 
of  the  early  days,  was  by  profession  a  physician, 
and  by  avocation  more  a  naturalist  than  a  ge- 
ologist. His  work  covered  roughly  the  habitable 
portion  of  the  state ;  but  his  reports  were  with- 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  183 

out  maps,  and  no  one  of  the  five  reaches  a 
hundred  pages  in  length. 

The  railway  surveys,  from  the  middle  to  the 
end  of  the  fifties,  were  accompanied  by  geolo- 
gists, Blake  and  Marcou  among  the  number ; 
while  Newberry,  as  geologist  of  the  Ives  expe- 
dition up  the  Colorado,  made  out,  in  part,  the 
structure  of  the  region  beyond  the  mountains. 
Blake,  in  addition,  reported  briefly  for  the 
Coast  Survey  on  the  sea  border  below  San 
Francisco.  All  these,  however,  were  but  hasty 
reconnoissances.  In  1860,  California  was,  geo- 
logically speaking,  an  unknown  land. 

The  credit  of  putting  an  end  to  this  state  of 
affairs  belongs  in  some  small  measure  to  her 
who  was  born  Elizabeth  Whitney.  It  had  been 
her  dream,  from  the  time  she  married  and  went 
to  California  to  live,  to  have  her  beloved  brother 
at  once  her  neighbor  and  the  head  of  a  state 
survey. 

California  in  its  early  days  had  few  inhabit- 
ants, and  still  fewer  citizens.  Among  these  few, 
however,  was  Elizabeth  Whitney's  husband,  S. 
Osgood  Putnam,  who  had  come  out  alone  in 
1850,  made  his  place  and  established  his  family, 
and  in  the  late  fifties  was  the  secretary  of  the 
California  Steam  Navigation  Company.  All 
but  a  half-dozen  of  the  American  states  had  by 
that  time  established  their  geological  surveys ; 


1 84        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

and  Putnam,  glad  to  further  the  interests  of  a 
state  especially  dependent  upon  mining  and 
agriculture,  and  at  the  same  time  to  please  his 
wife,  gave  himself  unsparingly  to  the  project 
of  a  survey  for  California.  He  was  himself  an 
influential  citizen,  and  he  soon  interested  others 
like  himself.  Among  these  was  Judge  Stephen 
J.  Field,  whose  brother,  Rev.  Henry  M.  Field 
of  New  York,  was  a  friend  of  the  Whitney 
family;  the  Judge,  though  in  general  a  thorough 
party  man,  did  his  best  to  keep  the  survey  out 
of  politics.  There  was  also  John  Conness,  then 
a  member  of  the  California  legislature  and 
afterwards  United  States  Senator  from  his 
state,  whose  well-deserved  monument  is  a  peak 
in  the  Sierra  Nevada.  To  these  three  belongs 
especially  the  credit  of  instituting  the  Cali- 
fornia Survey. 

There  were  backing  and  filling  and  years  of 
delay,  while  the  Californians  waited  to  see  what 
the  general  government  could  be  persuaded 
to  do  without  expense  to  them.  Finally,  April 
21,  1860,  John  G.  Downey,  Governor,  approved 
"An  act  to  create  the  Office  of  State  Geologist, 
and  to  define  the  duties  thereof." 

"  J.  D.  Whitney,"  read  section  one,  "is  hereby 
appointed  State  Geologist,  whose  duty  it  shall 
be,  with  the  aid  of  such  assistants  as  he  may 
appoint,  to  make  an  accurate  and  complete 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  185 

geological  survey  of  the  state,  and  to  furnish 
in  his  report  of  the  same  proper  maps  and  dia- 
grams thereof,  with  a  full  and  scientific  descrip- 
tion of  its  rocks,  fossils,  soils,  and  minerals,  and 
of  its  botanical  and  zoological  productions,  to- 
gether with  specimens  of  the  same,  which  speci- 
mens shall  be  properly  labeled  and  arranged, 
and  deposited  in  such  place  as  shall  be  here- 
after provided  for  that  purpose  by  the  legis- 
lature." 

Later  sections  of  the  bill  provided  that  the 
State  Geologist  should  report  progress  "as 
near  as  may  be  at  the  beginning  of  each  session 
of  the  legislature  " ;  and  that  there  should  be 
an  elaborate  final  report  on  the  completion  of 
the  survey.  All  such  reports  were  to  be  copy- 
righted and  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  school 
fund.  The  stipend  of  the  State  Geologist  was 
fixed  at  six  thousand  dollars  a  year,  to  be  paid 
monthly  out  of  the  appropriation  for  the  survey. 

The  act  was  a  model  of  its  kind.  It  looked 
to  a  thorough  survey,  broadly  planned  and  ex- 
tending over  many  years;  and  Whitney  him- 
self drafted  the  bill.  Its  single  weakness,  cer- 
tainly not  Whitney's  fault,  was  that  it  carried 
no  appropriation  beyond  the  $20,000  assigned 
for  the  first  year.  For  the  future,  it  left  the 
survey  at  the  mercy  of  each  succeeding  legis- 
lature. 


186        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

The  selection  of  a  state  geologist,  too,  was 
well  managed.  The  promoters  of  the  survey 
got  a  resolution  through  the  legislature  that 
no  candidate  should  be  considered  at  all  unless 
he  had  first  the  indorsement  of  the  Smithso- 
nian Institution.  Thus  at  a  single  stroke,  they 
cut  off  at  least  nine  tenths  of  the  aspirants  to 
the  position. 

Trask  had  a  natural  claim  to  be  considered. 
Blake  was  a  candidate,  and  Whitney's  most 
formidable  competitor.  But  the  scientific  East, 
almost  to  a  man,  united  on  Whitney,  Joseph 
Henry  alone  of  the  Smithsonian  officials  re- 
serving the  right  to  indorse  Hall  also,  should 
he  apply.  Agassiz  urged  Whitney's  appoint- 
ment ;  among  his  supporters  were  Foster,  Joy, 
Gibbs,  and  Gould,  the  two  Sillimans,  Eliphalet 
Nott,  Horsford,  Lovering,  Benjamin  Peirce, 
and  Edward  Hitchcock,  Dana,  Brush,  and 
Marsh,  Leidy,  Conrad,  Meek,  Bache,  Newberry; 
while  the  members  of  the  American  Associa- 
tion, from  their  meeting  in  the  summer  of  1860, 
sent  a  joint  letter  to  the  Governor  of  California 
expressing  their  "  profound  gratification  "  at 
Whitney's  promotion.  The  general  opinion  at 
Cambridge,  New  Haven,  and  Washington  was 
summed  up  in  Agassiz's  letter  to  the  Governor. 

"  A  geological  Survey  of  California,  to  be 
what  it  should  be  in  a  scientific  and  practical 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  187 

point  of  view,  requires  on  the  part  of  the  per- 
son who  shall  conduct  it,  abilities  of  a  peculiar 
kind.  .  .  .  You  need  at  the  head  of  your  survey  a 
geologist,  eminent  for  his  knowledge  in  metal- 
lurgy, far  more  than  one  who  might  be  dis- 
tinguished in  theoretical  Geology. 

"  Considering  the  particular  qualifications 
for  a  successful  survey  of  your  State,  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  there  is  only  one  man 
in  the  United  States  fully  qualified  for  it,  Mr. 
J.  D.  Whitney.  .  .  . 

"  I  do  not  mean  to  be  understood  as  if  I  con- 
sidered Mr.  Whitney  as  the  first  Geologist  of 
the  United  States,  taking  Geology  in  the  usual 
acceptation  of  the  word  when  it  is  made  to 
include  all  theoretical  questions  connected  with 
the  structure  of  the  earth,  as  well  as  the  or- 
ganic remains  contained  in  the  Strata  forming 
the  crust.  But  I  know  that  in  those  particular 
branches  of  Geology  a  knowledge  of  which  is 
particularly  required  for  a  successful  survey  of 
your  State,  he  has  not  only  no  superior,  but 
not  even  an  equal,  in  these  United  States." 

The  only  real  opposition  came  from  Blake, 
from  Lieber,  then  at  the  head  of  the  South 
Carolina  Survey,  and  from  C.  T.  Jackson,  who 
had  never  forgiven  his  separation  from  the 
Lake  Superior  Survey;  and  this  Whitney 
promptly  countered  by  proof  of  the  several 


188        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

motives  of  the  three  men.  Still  the  fact  re- 
mained that  this  was  "  the  only  appointment 
ever  made  in  California  on  any  other  than  po- 
litical grounds."  "  There  is  no  use,"  wrote  Joy, 
"of  mounting  upon  the  high  horse  of  science, 
and  attempting  to  ride  down  the  Governor. 
.  .  .  The  object  of  the  survey  may  be  to  pro- 
mote land  speculations,  and  the  Governor  may 
have  an  eye  to  some  gold  vein";  and  a  still 
less  hopeful  adviser  warned,  "  Keep  your  hon- 
esty out  of  sight,  or  you  are  a  gone  coon." 

With  high  hopes,  therefore,  but  with  no  illu- 
sions, Whitney  accepted  his  opportunity. 

The  new-made  State  Geologist  went  promptly 
to  work  to  prepare  for  his  new  duties.  He 
cleaned  up  the  field  work  in  the  lead  region, 
or  put  it  into  such  shape  that  it  could  be  com- 
pleted by  his  assistants.  William  Whitney  un- 
dertook to  see  the  reports  through  the  press. 
His  business  affairs  Josiah  turned  over  to  his 
father.  For  his  library,  now  approaching  $10,000 
in  value,  he  built  a  "  shanty  "  on  his  father's  lot 
behind  the  family  mansion.  It  was  a  story-and-a- 
half,  fireproof  structure,  with  storerooms  for 
furniture  above,  and  a  single  large  room  be- 
low, which  served  as  study  and  work-room  for 
Whitney  when  at  Northampton,  and  for  other 
men  of  science  who  from  time  to  time  consulted 
his  books.  Besides  these  obligations  to  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  189 

past,  there  were  something  like  two  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  instruments  of  one  sort  and 
another  to  be  purchased  and  shipped,  and  two 
years'  supply  of  clothes,  especially  for  the 
"  women-folks  " ;  for  in  San  Francisco  every- 
thing was  at  least  double  price  and  "you  really 
could  n't  get  a  bonnet  you  could  wear  for  less 
than  twenty  dollars." 

Most  important  of  all  was  the  selection  of 
assistants.  These  must  needs  be  unmarried 
men,  for  the  survey  could  afford  to  pay  them 
only  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  a  year,  a  sum 
on  which  no  family  man  could  live  in  Califor- 
nia. They  needed  to  be  young  men,  hardy  and 
adventurous;  and  companionable  men  and 
loyal  men  withal,  if  they  were  to  get  on  together 
in  the  wilderness.  Many,  therefore,  were  the 
letters  and  the  conferences  with  the  older  men 
over  the  latent  qualities  of  this,  that,  and  the 
other  beginner.  For  Whitney,  if  he  did  not 
need,  at  least  followed  the  advice  which  Hall 
gave  him  at  this  time:  "If  you  get  good  men, 
your  work  will  go  well,  and  you  will  be  greatly 
relieved.  I  remember  that  Ramsay  of  the  Cana- 
dian Survey  said,  —  and  had  I  learned  it  sooner, 
I  should 'have  saved  myself  much  trouble, — 
*  We  have  no  difficulty  in  our  survey,  but  we 
have  none  but  gentlemen  on  the  work.' " 

There  were  eight  in  the  company  which  on 


190        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

October  1 8, 1860,  left  Northampton  for  Califor- 
nia by  way  of  New  York  and  Aspinwall.  There 
were  Mrs.  Whitney  and  a  maid;  little  Eleanor, 
now  a  child  of  four ;  a  general  utility  man  from 
Northampton,  by  name  Michael  Eagan,  who 
could  turn  his  hand  to  anything  from  camp 
cooking  to  laboratory  chores ;  and  of  the  sci- 
entific staff  of  the  survey,  William  H.  Brewer 
and  William  Ashburner.  There  was  besides  a 
college  boy,  Chester  Averill,  whose  family 
was  punishing  him  for  a  student  prank  by 
sending  him  on  a  trip  around  the  world.  He 
knew  a  little  engineering,  was  a  friend  of  Ash- 
burner,  joined  the  survey  for  the  adventure, 
acted  as  clerk,  mule-driver,  barometrical  obser- 
ver, and  general  factotum,  and  turned  out  in 
the  end  to  be  an  efficient  and  useful  man. 
Ashburner  was  the  assistant  in  geology,  a 
connection  of  the  Field  family,  and  a  former 
student  at  the  Paris  School  of  Mines.  Brewer, 
now  Professor  Emeritus  at  Yale,  was  then  eight 
years  out  of  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 
where  he  had  been  a  classmate  of  Whitney's 
friend  Brush.  He  had  been  a  pupil  of  Liebig 
and  Bunsen,  was  a  chemist  and  botanist,  and 
something  of  a  geologist  besides.  He  had  long 
been  interested  in  the  exploration  of  the  far 
West.  In  fact  he  applied  for  a  place  on  Gunni- 
son's  expedition  of  1853  and  1854,  and  was 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  191 

refused — not  in  the  end  to  his  disadvantage, 
since  the  entire  party  was  murdered  by  the 
Indians.  Whitney  did  not  know  him  personally, 
but  took  him  for  the  agricultural  end  of  the 
survey,  on  the  recommendation  of  Brush,  in 
whose  judgment  of  men  he  placed  the  highest 
confidence.  The  outcome  was  most  fortu- 
nate. Brewer  became  not  only  the  right-hand 
man  of  the  survey,  but  his  chief's  close  friend. 
Under  the  peculiar  conditions  of  California,  his 
loyalty  and  his  tact  proved  hardly  less  valuable 
than  his  scientific  attainments. 

The  party  were  nearly  a  month  on  the  way, 
and,  after  an  interesting  though  trying  voyage, 
reached  San  Francisco  on  November  14.  Put- 
nam met  them  on  the  wharf ;  and  soon  the  Whit- 
neys  were  making  the  acquaintance  of  their 
two  young  nieces,  while  the  other  members  of 
the  party  were  establishing  themselves  in  the 
quarters  which  Putnam's  forethought  had  pro- 
vided for  them.  Altogether  Whitney  had  good 
reason  to  be  pleased  with  his  reception.  The 
survey  was  popular;  the  Governor  friendly. 
The  newspapers  were  complimentary,  and 
chronicled  every  movement  of  the  surveyors. 
Prominent  citizens  called,  to  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  staff.  There  were,  Whitney 
affirmed,  ten  thousand  applications  for  places. 

Trask,  the  former  State  Geologist,  acted  in 


192        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

the  most  generous  manner,  aided  his  successor 
by  every  means  in  his  power,  turned  over  all 
his  private  notes,  and  loaned  his  collection  of 
fossils.  Blake,  however,  proved  distinctly  less 
friendly. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done,  after  the  survey 
had  settled  itself  in  its  offices  at  67  Montgom- 
ery Block,  was  to  try  out  its  camp  equipment, 
and  to  get  some  idea  of  the  lay  of  the  land, 
that  detailed  plans  might  be  made  for  work  in 
the  spring.  It  was  too  late  in  the  season  for 
field  work  in  the  central  and  northern  portions 
of  the  state,  and  the  Governor,  who  was  a  Los 
Angeles  man,  advised  beginning  in  the  region 
behind  San  Bernardino,  whence  had  just  come 
reports  of  tin  deposits  of  fabulous  wealth. 

Here,  however,  the  State  Geologist  shall 
take  up  the  story  for  himself. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY,    AT    YALE 
SAN  FRANCISCO,  December  4,  1860. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  — .  .  .  Soon  after  my  ar- 
rival, I  went  to  Sacramento  and  bagged  (liter- 
ally) $10,000,  to  commence  work  on.  The  Gov- 
ernor was  very  civil ;  I  was  called  on  by  all  the 
dignitaries,  and  much  interest  was  manifested 
in  the  work.  Returned  to  San  Francisco  and 
fitted  out  my  party.  .  .  .  These  left  with  all 
the  outfit  for  camp  life,  a  fortnight  ago,  for  Los 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  193 

Angeles  to  begin  work  in  the  Bernardino  and 
Temescal  ranges.  I  started  immediately  for  the 
Mariposa  Estate  with  Col.  Fremont,  to  meet 
M.  Claudet,  agent  of  Rothschild's,  and  M.  Laur, 
sent  out  by  the  French  government  to  inspect 
and  report  on  California.  We  spent  four 
days  together  in  examining  the  principal  veins 
on  the  estate,  which  are  indeed  magnificent. 
We  had  a  very  jolly  time ;  and  I  returned  on 
Tuesday  in  a  great  hurry  to  take  the  boat  for 
Los  Angeles.  ...  I  plunge  into  the  moun- 
tains, and  return  here  again  in  February  to 
go  to  Sacramento,  to  lobby  for  a  new  appro- 
priation and  then  up  north  into  the  mountains 
again. 

TO   WILLIAM  DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Los  ANGELES,  December  25,  1860. 

.  .  .  We  came  in  from  the  mountains  last 
night  after  ten  days  of  camp  life,  having  made 
a  little  trip  west  to  see  how  we  worked  to- 
gether, what  we  needed  for  an  outfit  more  than 
we  had,  and  what  the  hitches  were  likely  to  be. 

Our  party  as  organized  consists  of  myself 
(known  to  you  personally),  Mr.  Brewer,  Mr. 
Ashburner,  a  Mr.  Averill,  Michael  Eagan,  cook, 
Peter  Gabriel,  mule-driver,  and  a  young  Span- 
iard or  Californian,  named  Gurrado,  a  brother- 
in-law  of  the  Governor,  as  the  go-between  for 


194        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

us  and  the  Spaniards,  .  .  .  who  form  a  large 
part  of  the  population  of  Southern  Califor- 
nia. ...  A  knowledge  of  the  Spanish  lan- 
guage is  almost  a  necessity  now,  and  I  am  rub- 
bing mine  up  as  fast  as  I  can.  .  .  . 

We  have  a  medium-sized  waggon,  on  thor- 
ough braces,  drawn  by  four  mules,  and  five 
saddle  mules  in  addition.  Of  course,  all  the 
rigging  is  Californian,  closely  resembling  the 
Mexican  —  saddles  with  big  wooden  stirrups, 
high  pommels,  and  straight  cantles.  Each  man 
carries  a  revolver  and  a  big  knife,  and,  -besides, 
we  have  two  Sharp's  carbines  and  two  double 
barreled  fowling  pieces,  so  that  we  could  do 
considerable  shooting  in  case  of  necessity.  We 
never  go  out  from  camp,  or  in  town  in  the 
evening,  without  looking  to  our  arms.  .  .  . 
Every  one  says  it  is  necessary  to  be  well 
armed;  and  that  if  you  are  well  armed,  you 
will  probably  be  let  alone.  Our  mule-driver 
was  once  attacked  close  by  this  place,  by  two 
robbers;  but  fought  them  off,  wounding  one 
and  frightening  away  the  other.  He  is  a  young 
fellow  of  genuine  pluck,  and  a  valuable  acquisi- 
tion. It  is  a  real  science  to  look  after  mules  and 
their  rigging. 

In  camp  we  live  on  game,  which  is  abun- 
dant, and  fresh  beef,  which  is  quite  cheap  in 
these  parts.  The  greatest  annoyance  we  have 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  195 

had  thus  far,  has  been  from  the  weather.  .  .  . 
It  has  rained  more  or  less  almost  every  day 
since  we  took  the  field,  and  sometimes  has 
poured  steadily  for  twenty-four  and  . . .  thirty-six 
hours  without  a  moment's  interruption.  All  say 
that  nothing  like  it  has  been  seen  since  1849-50. 
We  are  now  at  the  hotel,  as  we  arrived  too  late 
to  camp,  on  Monday  night  —  luckily  enough,  or 
we  should  have  pitched  our  tents  on  the  other 
side  the  river,  which  is  now  swollen  to  a  furious, 
impassable  torrent.  Here  we  are  well  fed  and 
badly  lodged ;  cold  and  damp,  of  course,  as  in 
all  countries  with  a  climate  like  this,  no  provi- 
sion is  made  for  bad  weather  or  winter  cold.  .  .  . 
I  need  hardly  say  that  we  find  the  region  an 
interesting  one ;  we  are  here  just  on  the  limits 
of  the  cactus  region,  and  the  wild  fig  or  prickly 
pear  is  very  common  all  over  the  low  hills. 
Artemisia  and  sage  are  the  most  common 
shrubby  plants  on  the  plains,  and  aroma  and 
prickles  are  common  to  almost  all  kinds  of 
vegetables  here.  The  lower  ranges  of  moun- 
tains are  thickly  covered  with  chaparral,  so  as 
to  be  very  difficult  to  climb.  The  valleys,  or 
canons  .  .  .  are  sparsely  covered  with  evergreen, 
oaks,  and  sycamores.  The  spring  is  just  com- 
mencing (December  showers  bring  forth  Jan- 
uary flowers,  in  this  region).  The  grass  is  up 
high  enough  to  be  tolerable  food  for  the  cattle, 


^196        JOSIAH  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

which  roam  in  immense  herds  over  the  plains 
.  .  .  and  a  good  many  plants  are  just  coming 
into  flower.  .  .  .  On  a  clear  day  we  find  our- 
selves almost  surrounded  by  distant  snow-cov- 
ered peaks  and  ranges  from  6000  to  9000  feet 
in  altitude.  The  San  Bernardino  is  the  highest, 
and  is  about  eighty  miles  due  east  from  us. 
This  is  a  sort  of  Gordian  knot  or  umbilicus,  of 
the  mountains,  where  all  the  ranges  come  to- 
gether and  weave  a  curious  snarl  for  the  geolo- 
gist to  unravel.  .  .  . 

Next  to  earthquakes,  probably  what  shocks 
the  stranger  most  is  the  scale  of  prices  in  this 
region.  Provisions  are  not  dear,  excepting 
groceries ;  beef  and  flour  are  cheap  even ;  but 
all  kinds  of  mechanical  work,  tools,  utensils, 
labor,  etc.,  are  all  very  dear.  Double  our  prices 
for  common  things,  and  quadruple  them  for 
what  we  call  "  odd  jobs,"  and  you  would  have 
an  idea  of  what  we  have  to  pay.  Meals  are 
always  $1.00  each  in  California;  but  generally 
good  and  abundant.  .  .  . 

I  was  very  much  struck  at  Mr.  [Rev.  Thomas 
Starr]  King's  church  by  the  intelligent  look  of 
the  audience.  .  .  .  What  struck  me  most  at 
San  Francisco  (next  to  the  dirt  and  the  fleas) 
was  the  restless  energy  with  which  people  fol- 
low the  business  in  which  they  are  engaged ; 
which  of  course,  is  to  make  a  living,  and  as 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  197 

much  more  as  they  can.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if 
there  were  but  few  who  did  not  really  intend 
to  return  "  to  the  states  "  at  some  future  time, 
to  remain  there  if  they  could  accumulate 
enough  to  live  on. 

So  for  all  its  twenty  thousand  dollars,  the  sur- 
vey was  poor.  Popular  as  it  was,  it  depended  for 
its  future  income  upon  men  who,  for  the  most 
part,  had  no  permanent  stake  in  the  country. 

When,  after  this  first  glance  at  his  domain, 
Whitney  came  to  work  out  his  detailed  plans 
for  the  survey,  he  realized  that  the  greatness 
of  his  opportunity  carried  with  it  problems  no 
less  great.  California  is  eight  hundred  miles 
long,  while  nine  tenths  of  its  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  square  miles  of  area  is  mountain 
country  or  desert,  without  roads  in  those  days, 
uninhabited,  and  in  large  measure  unknown. 
Its  boundaries,  moreover,  except  its  sea  border, 
are  so  entirely  arbitrary  that  any  complete 
study  of  its  geological  structure  must  perforce 
be  carried  over  into  the  outlying  country; 
while  for  most  practical  purposes,  western 
Nevada,  and,  to  a  less  degree,  Oregon,  were 
then  parts  of  California.  Thus  four  states  and 
Lower  California  were  within  Whitney's  scope. 
"  I  have  found  out, "  he  wrote  his  father,  "  that 
the  State  of  California  is  a  prodigiously  large 


198        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

one.  Not  that  I  did  not  know  it  before ;  but 
now  I  have  a  realizing  sense  of  it.  It  is  as  big 
as  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  Belgium,  Hanover, 
and  Bavaria  put  together  !  If  I  had  a  complete 
map  of  the  state,  a  corps  twice  as  large  as  I 
now  have,  and  worked  as  fast  (on  the  geology 
only)  as  the  English  government  surveyors  do, 
I  should  finish  in  just  150  years.  Having  our 
own  maps  to  make,  our  labor  is  tripled;  and 
consequently  we  shall  be  through  in  450  years 
or  thereabouts  —  that  is  to  say,  if  we  work  as 
minutely  as  the  English  geologists  do." 

Whitney's  problem,  moreover,  took  on  an 
added  difficulty  from  his  relation  to  the  legis- 
lature. If  the  survey  was  to  go  on  for  ten,  fif- 
teen, twenty  years,  it  ought  to  be  planned  with 
far-sighted  wisdom.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
legislature  should  at  any  moment  change  its 
mind  and  stop  the  survey,  the  work  must  have 
been  so  conducted  as  to  yield  immediate  and 
creditable  results.  Besides  this,  the  bill  called 
for  a  zoological,  botanical,  and  agricultural 
survey  of  the  state ;  each  of  which,  like  the 
geographical  and  topographical  surveys,  must 
make  worthy  contributions  to  science,  and  at 
the  same  time  satisfy  the  expectations  of  voters 
by  no  means  especially  enlightened. 

To  meet  these  requirements,  various  and  not 
altogether  compatible  with  one  another,  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  199 

State  Geologist  decided  to  spend  the  first  year 
or  two  in  a  reconnoissance  of  the  entire  state, 
except  the  high  Sierras.  He  would  start  with 
the  San  Bernardino  Mountains  where  he  had 
first  broken  ground,  and  work  gradually  north 
up  the  Coast  Ranges  and  the  central  valley. 
The  results  would  be  well  worth  having  for 
their  own  sakes,  for  they  would  settle  once  for 
all  the  main  features  of  California  geology.  In 
addition,  should  the  survey  continue,  this  in- 
troductory study  would  provide  a  basis  for 
more  detailed  work  in  later  years.  The  great 
mountain  range  on  the  east  could  wait  a  year 
or  two,  until  the  habitable  portions  of  the  state 
were  made  out. 

In  the  meantime,  there  was  the  ever  present 
problem  of  maps.  Whitney  was  himself  among 
the  earliest  of  geological  surveyors  to  abandon 
vague  general  descriptions,  and  to  follow  the 
modern  practice  of  locating  every  geologic  fact 
and  delimiting  every  formation  on  an  accurate 
chart.  But  the  only  maps  of  California  were 
the  rough  sketches  of  private  explorers,  and 
the  linear  surveys  of  the  General  Land  Office 
at  Washington.  Both  together  took  in  only  a 
minute  portion  of  the  country,  and  both  alike 
were  hopelessly  inaccurate.  From  any  point 
of  view,  scientific,  commercial,  or  military,  a 
trustworthy  map  was  a  necessity.  To  this, 


200        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

therefore,  the  survey  applied  itself  from  the 
beginning. 

The  field  work  involved  in  these  several 
plans  fell  during  the  first  years  largely  to 
Brewer;  for  Ashburner,  unfortunately,  proved 
lacking  in  physical  stamina.  Shortly  before  he 
came  to  California,  he  had  made  a  survey  of 
Newfoundland,  privately,  for  Cyrus  Field  in 
connection,  more  or  less  remotely,  with  the 
first  Atlantic  cable.  From  that  lean  country  he 
came  back  with  the  scurvy ;  and,  though  he 
was  apparently  cured,  the  privations  of  camp 
life  brought  on  his  trouble  again.  Whitney, 
therefore,  detailed  him  for  special  work  in  the 
mining  regions.  He,  himself,  divided  his  time 
among  the  mines,  the  field  party,  the  work  at  the 
office  in  San  Francisco,  and  the  legislature  at 
Sacramento ;  while  such  moments  as  remained 
over,  he  spent  on  special  problems,  or  in  excur- 
sions to  various  points  in  and  out  of  the  state. 

So  much  then  for  the  general  scheme.  De- 
tails appear  in  Whitney's  letters  from  San 
Francisco  to  his  brother. 

TO   WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  10,  1861. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, — .  .  .  How  blessed  thank- 
ful you  ought  to  be  that  you  are  comfortably 
settled  down  in  your  own  house,  instead  of 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  201 

being  driven  from  pillar  to  post,  from  tent  to 
tavern  as  we  are !  .  .  .  Monday,  Louisa  and  I 
go  up  to  the  seat  of  government,  where,  on 
Tuesday,  I  hold  forth  to  the  legislature  as  fol- 
lows:  i st.  The  objects  and  aims  of  geology  in 
general ;  2nd.  Origin  and  progress  of  geologi- 
cal surveys ;  3rd.  Mining  and  mineral  history 
of  the  United  States;  4th.  What  may  be  ac- 
complished for  California  by  a  well-conducted 
geological  survey;  5th.  How  such  a  survey 
should  be  carried  on.  These  are  the  "heads" 
of  my  discourse.  And  won't  it  be  dry !  Next 
week  I  shall  haunt  the  capitol,  bore  and  lobby 
as  long  as  I  can  stand  it ;  and  hope  to  get 
away  in  time  to  return  to  the  south  by  the  next 
Sunday's  steamer.  I  shall  find  my  party  at 
Santa  Barbara,  and  mean  to  work  with  them 
for  about  three  weeks,  and  then  leave  them  to 
go  ahead  on  their  own  hooks.  . .  .  [After  that] 
I,  with  Louisa,  Eleanor,  and  Mary  [the  maid], 
plunge  into  the  gold  region,  making  our  head- 
quarters at  the  hospitable  house  of  William 
Longley  (an  old  friend  of  Louisa's)  at  the 
"  Dardanelles  diggings,"  way  up  in  Placer 
County,  right  in  the  midst  of  the  great  hydrau- 
lic mining  operations.  Here  Louisa  means  to 
remain  for  about  a  month.  I  shall  operate  in 
her  vicinity,  and  be  governed  in  my  move- 
ments by  the  action  of  the  legislature. 


202        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  June  19,  1861. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  Since  I  wrote  you  last,  I 
have  set  up  housekeeping,  and  am  surrounded 
by  shavings,  paint-pots,  mops,  brushes,  and 
brooms,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  and  infernalia 
of  putting  a  dirty  house  in  order.  .  .  . 

We  commenced  housekeeping  Saturday,  the 
fifteenth,  Mary,  Eleanor,  and  I ;  and  the  same 
day  Louisa  started  for  the  "  Gosh  a '  Mighty ! " 
or  "Yosemite,"  as  it  is  correctly  called.  .  .  . 
They  probably  reached  there  last  night,  having 
got  to  Sonora  Sunday  night.  From  there  it 
was  fifteen  miles  by  carriage,  and  thirty-nine 
and  a  half  by  mule  or  horseback  to  the  great 
valley.  .  .  . 

I  hope  the  trip  will  improve  her  health. 
Mine  has  been  very  poor  this  last  month, 
although  mending  now.  I  was  taken  sick  at 
Stockton,  on  the  twelfth  of  May,  and  have  been 
more  or  less  under  the  weather  ever  since. 
I  wrote  my  address  for  the  California  College 
commencement,  and  delivered  it  on  the  sixth 
of  June ;  and  started  the  next  day  for  Calaveras 
County,  where  I  spent  a  few  days  miserably 
uncomfortable.  .  .  .  The  doctor  said  that  ...  it 
was  the  malaria  of  the  .  .  .  Mississippi  Valley 
working  itself  out,  as  was  often  the  case  in 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  203 

California  with  those  coming  from  that  re- 
gion. .  .  .  Now  I  am  much  better  . .  .  and  only 
lack  brains  and  energy  to  be  all  right  again. 
I  suppose  I  have  rather  overworked  myself  of 
late  and  need  some  rest  —  which  is  hard  to 
get,  as  it  is  not  in  my  nature  to  stop  work  if  I 
can  help  it. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  15,  1861. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, — .  .  .  After  Louisa  got 
back  from  the  Yosemite,  I  went  to  New  Idria, 
about  two  hundred  miles  south  in  the  Monte 

Diablo  range,  taking  three  weeks  for  the  trip 

Last  week  ...  I  spent  at  the  New  Almaden 
mine.  .  .  .  Monday  I  expect  to  be  off  for 
Washoe  for  a  month.  .  .  . 

We  have  on  the  stocks  a  large  and  fine  map 
of  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco,  reaching  from  the 
New  Almaden  mine  up  to  Napa  Valley.  It 
covers  a  space  eighty  by  forty  miles,  a  mere 
flyspeck  on  the  area  of  California.  This  map  I 
hope  to  be  able  to  put  in  the  engraver's  hands 
this  winter  or  next  spring. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  September  6,  1861. 
.  .  .  The  trip  [into  Nevada]  was  in  every 
respect  pleasant  and  satisfactory.   I  took  the 


204        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

stage  on  the  overland  route  to  Carson  City. 
At  Placerville  I  was  joined  by  Mr.  Ashburner, 
stopping  there  a  day  to  look  at  the  geology  of 
the  region.  .  .  .  We  stopped  over  a  day  at  the 
Lake  [Bigler  on  Whitney's  maps,  Tahoe  now] 
to  rest  and  see  Lieutenant  [J.  C.]  Ives,  who  is 
encamped  there  determining  the  point  of  inter- 
section of  the  i2oth  meridian  with  the  39th 
parallel,  from  which  the  boundary  line  of  Cali- 
fornia runs  due  north.  .  .  . 

I  stayed  ten  days  at  Virginia  City  .  .  .  and 
reached  San  Francisco  just  in  time  to  learn  of 
the  success  of  the  Republican  ticket  in  the 
state  election.  I  had  little  doubt  that  [Leland] 
Stanford  would  be  elected  Governor ;  but  there 
was  a  very  strong  feeling  .  .  .  and  for  days 
previous  to  the  election  there  was  quiet  arming 
and  preparing  to  fight  on  both  sides  in  case 
the  Secession  ticket  had  been  successful.  Con- 
ness,  the  defeated  Douglas  candidate,  was  one 
of  my  strongest  friends,  and  the  chief  author 
of  the  geological  survey  bill.  .  .  . 

Altogether  the  first  year  of  the  California 
Geological  Survey  had  been  a  successful  one. 
The  work  had  begun  so  late  in  the  fall  of  1860 
that  there  was  $10,000  of  the  appropriation 
left  over;  and  this,  with  the  $15,000  more  ap- 
propriated in  1862,  enabled  the  State  Geolo- 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  205 

gist  to  take  on  three  new  men.  The  zoologist, 
Dr.  J.  G.  Cooper,  a  surgeon  in  the  United 
States  Army,  had  been  naturalist  on  one  of 
the  Pacific  Railway  surveys,  and  was  already 
a  man  of  established  scientific  reputation. 
Charles  F.  Hoffmann,  the  topographer,  was  a 
young  German  and  a  find  of  Whitney's  own 
in  California.  He  was  a  well-trained  man,  with 
some  experience,  and  he  soon  became  one  of 
the  valuable  men  of  the  survey.  Only  toward 
the  end  of  the  year,  however,  did  Whitney  find 
a  paleontologist  to  his  mind  in  William  More 
Gabb,  of  Philadelphia,  a  man  of  thirty-two,  and 
already  a  recognized  authority  on  Cretaceous 
fossils.  For  Whitney,  contrary  to  the  usual 
practice,  insisted  that  his  paleontologist  should 
go  into  the  field,  and  actually  see  his  material 
for  himself  as  it  lay  in  the  rocks.  Gabb  began 
with  no  experience  outside  the  laboratory ;  but 
he,  too,  became  one  of  the  main  props  of  the 
survey,  and  saw  it  through  almost  to  its  end. 
The  survey  still  lacked  a  chemist.  But  Whitney 
was  unwilling  to  set  up  a  complete  laboratory, 
or  to  get  together  a  library,  until  he  saw  how 
matters  were  going  at  Sacramento,  and  there- 
fore sent  east  his  more  important  work  to  be 
done  under  direction  of  Brush. 

The  plans  made  at  the  beginning  of  the  year 
had  been  carried  through  without  mishap.  The 


206        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Chief  Geologist  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes 
some  portion  at  least  of  forty  of  the  forty-six 
counties  of  California.  Brewer,  at  the  head  of 
the  field  party,  had  traveled  twenty-six  hun- 
dred miles  on  mule-back,  a  thousand  more  on 
foot,  and  enough  besides,  by  other  means,  to 
bring  his  entire  tour  of  exploration  close  to 
five  thousand  miles.  In  general,  the  survey 
had  covered  the  southern  two  thirds  of  the 
state,  halfway  back  from  the  sea  to  the  eastern 
border. 

"There  are  many  points,"  wrote  Whitney 
to  his  brother,  "on  which  we  need  farther 
light,  although  some  of  the  most  important 
ones  I  consider  about  as  good  as  settled  —  for 
instance,  the  age  of  the  auriferous  rocks  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  which  I  have  pretty  well  made 
out  to  be  Jurassic  and  not  Paleozoic  as  every- 
body has  assumed.  The  auriferous  detritus  is 
Pliocene,  containing  many  bones  of  extinct 
animals.  The  coal  of  this  coast  is  Cretaceous, 
etc.  We  have  probably  two  hundred  new  spe- 
cies of  fossils  .  .  .  and  a  great  many  new  ani- 
mals and  plants.  There  appears  to  be  a  strong 
disposition  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  promi- 
nent men  here  to  have  me  go  to  London  to 
represent  the  state  at  the  World's  Fair.  But 
I  have  not  favored  the  idea,  lest  it  might  injure 
the  survey,  and  being  more  interested  in  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  207 

geology  of   California  than  anything  else  at 
present." 

The  winter  rains,  two  weeks  late,  stopped 
outdoor  work  at  the  middle  of  November, 
when  the  field  party  had  reached  the  geyser 
region  west  of  Mt.  St.  Helena,  some  sixty-odd 
miles  north  of  San  Francisco.  The  workers, 
except  the  scientific  staff,  were  paid  off.  Dr. 
Cooper  went  south  to  San  Diego  to  collect 
during  the  winter.  The  other  men  settled  down 
at  the  San  Francisco  offices  to  work  up  the 
materials  collected  during  the  summer ;  while 
Whitney,  in  addition,  prepared  his  first  report. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   SEARCH   AFTER  A   HIGH   MOUNTAIN 
1862-1864 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  January  19,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, — .  .  .  Since  I  wrote  last,  we 
have  had  a  very  hard  time  of  it  here  in  Cali- 
fornia :  the  state  has  been,  and  still  is,  swamped, 
submerged,  inundated,  deluged,  overwhelmed, 
—  anything  in  the  aqueous  line  that  your  fancy 
chooses.  Losses  in  "  the  dry  way  "  have  here- 
tofore been  the  greatest  calamities  brought 
upon  our  towns  and  cities  ;  but  this  application 
of  the  humid  process  beats  them  all  put  to- 
gether. It  has  rained  almost  incessantly  all 
over  the  state  ever  since  we  left  the  field  in 
November.  The  fall  of  water  in  the  mountains 
has  been  terrific ;  everywhere,  both  in  mountain 
and  valley,  it  is  one  scene  of  desolation.  Sacra- 
mento is  now  in  its  third  submergence,  and 
what  the  end  will  be  nobody  knows,  as  there  is 
no  indication  of  stopping.  All  bridges  are  gone 
and  communication  absolutely  cut  off  in  all 
directions.  The  Overland  mail  has  not  arrived 
for  ten  days,  and  the  damage  to  the  road  on 
the  "  grades  "  is  so  great  that  it  is  said  that  it 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     209 

will  take  two  months  to  make  it  passable  again. 
What  we  are  going  to  do  for  mails,  I  do  not 
know.  Some  of  them  may  get  through  in  the 
course  of  time,  but  a  majority  of  them  will 
probably  never  be  heard  of  again.  .  .  . 

It  is  estimated  by  some  that  one  third  of 
the  taxable  property  of  the  state  has  been  de- 
stroyed. Sacramento  is  generally  considered 
as  having  "gone  in."  The  resources  of  the 
state  will  be  very  seriously  crippled  for  some 
time  to  come,  and  it  is  no  more  than  reasonable 
to  expect  that,  amid  the  absolutely  necessary 
retrenchments,  the  geological  survey  will  come 
in  for  a  share.  The  estimates  will  all  be  cut 
down  to  a  much  smaller  figure,  or  possibly  the 
whole  thing  will  be  temporarily  suspended. 

I  am  at  work  on  my  report,  but  have  not 
decided  how  full  to  make  it.  We  have  material 
for  quite  a  "  lengthy  "  document  already.  I  much 
prefer,  however,  to  cut  it  as  short  as  possible, 
so  that  it  may  be  off  my  hands  before  the  season 
for  field  work  begins,  and  to  save  expense.  .  .  . 
We  are  all  well,  in  spite  of  wind  and  weather. 
It  would  n't  be  California  not  to  keep  up  good 
spirits.  The  drowned-out  Sacramentans,  even, 
take  it  coolly  and  do  not  add  to  the  aqueous 
precipitate  by  any  unnecessary  tears.  Judge 
Longley's  property  at  the  Dardanelles  is  un- 
doubtedly more  or  less  injured.  It  is  impossi- 


210        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

ble  to  get  to  [the]  place  at  present,  as  the 
bridges  are  down  and  the  north  fork  of  the 
American  River  rolls  a  raging  flood,  over  which 
no  one  can  pass.  .  .  .  Osgood's  ranch  has  es- 
caped without  serious  damage,  being  pretty 
well  up  on  the  foot-hills.  It  would  have  been 
very  hard  for  him,  if  his  barn  and  stock  had 
been  swept  away,  as  has  been  the  case  with 
almost  all  the  dwellers  lower  down  in  the  val- 
leys. Money  4%  a  month,  and  not  to  be  had 
at  that. 

TO    HIS    FATHER 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  24,  1862.   v. 

.  .  .  Our  legislature  appropriated  #15,000 
last  year  for  the  survey;  but  of  this,  owing  to 
the  emptiness  of  the  state  treasury,  I  have 
not  received  a  cent.  .  .  .  My  account  is  au- 
dited for  $10,000,  .  .  .  and  this  the  Controller 
promises  me  in  May.  .  .  .  The  remaining 
$5000  still  due  ...  of  last  year's  appropriation 
.  .  .  will  not  be  paid  before  next  December. 

Now,  as  soon  as  I  get  my  $10,000,  it  will  all 
have  to  be  paid  out,  and  I  shall  soon  have  to 
commence  borrowing  again  at  two  per  cent 
per  month  ...  or  stop  the  survey.  ...  If 
you  can  borrow  $5000  and  lend  it  to  me  .  .  . 
I  cannot  see  that  you  would  be  running  the 
least  risk,  as  you  have  the  credit  of  a  sovereign 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     211 

state  behind  you,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  state  is  going  to  repudiate.  .  .  . 
If  I  have  to  pay  you  12%  a  year  for  the  money, 
it  will  save  me  12%,  as  there  is  no  hope  of 
getting  the  money  here  for  less  than  2%  a 
month. 

TO    HIS   FATHER 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  29,  1862. 

Your  letter  .  .  .  was  duly  received  on  the 
arrival  of  the  steamer  .  .  .  and  also  the  draft 
for  $1000  per  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.  I  was  very 
glad  to  get  the  money,  but  am  sorry  that  you 
should  feel  so  uneasy  about  lending  it.  ...  I 
hoped  that  you  would  put  the  rate  of  interest 
so  high  that  you  would  look  upon  it  as  a  good 
investment,  rather  than  as  a  favor.  .  .  . 

You  seem  to  think  that  I  ought  to  stop  the 
work  of  the  survey  and  wait  until  the  money 
is  paid ;  but  this  would  not  do  at  all  Neither 
the  Governor  nor  the  people  would  understand 
such  a  move.  Everybody  here  is  accustomed 
to  borrowing,  and  they  expect  me  to  borrow 
as  a  matter  of  course.  The  last  legislature  did 
try  to  mend  matters  a  little  for  me  as  an  ex- 
ception, by  making  my  appropriation  a  special 
one,  to  be  reserved  as  a  u  special  fund  "  out  of 
the  first  money  coming  in.  ... 

Suppose  I  were  to  discharge  my  assistants: 


212        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

the  corps  would  be  broken  up,  they  would 
seek  and  find  employment  elsewhere ;  and  when 
I  wanted  to  resume  work  again,  it  would  be 
almost  equivalent  to  beginning  the  survey 
anew.  ...  I  could  not  in  the  whole  United 
States  (or  Confederate  States  either)  find  two 
men  who  would  answer  my  purpose  as  well  as 
Hoffmann  and  Brewer  .  .  .  and  as  Gabb  has 
only  just  come  out  and  begun  work,  I  cannot 
send  him  back  now.  .  .  . 

Suppose  that  my 'appropriation  of  $15,000 
for  next  year  is  cut  down  to  the  extent  of  $1000 
by  interest  paid  for  money  borrowed,  and  sup- 
pose that  that  sum  came  out  of  my  pocket, 
leaving  me  only  $5000  salary,  would  it  not  be 
better  to  carry  on  the  work  until  some  results 
had  been  obtained  creditable  to  myself  and  the 
state  ?  But  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  amount 
I  have  to  pay  for  money  advanced  will  be  al- 
lowed as  part  of  the  necessary  expenses  of  the 
survey.  .  .  .  No  one  expresses  the  shadow  of 
a  doubt  that  the  appropriation  will  be  paid  in 
time.  I  can  borrow  money  here  of  the  sharpest 
money-lenders  on  the  security  of  a  state  appro- 
priation. The  state  is  not  really  in  debt  to  any 
considerable  extent,  but  the  treasury  is  empty, 
and  so  each  creditor  has  to  wait  his  chance  to 
be  paid  in  his  regular  order.  The  Governor 
and  Chief  Justice  are  just  as  badly  off  as  I  am, 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN    213 

as  far  as  their  personal  salaries  are  concerned. 
I  have  already  talked  with  the  Governor ;  he 
does  not  wish  to  interfere  with  the  survey  in 
any  way  nor  to  hamper  my  movements.  He 
is  quite  favorably  disposed,  and  trusts  me  to 
do  as  I  think  best.  I  should  not  dare  to  sug- 
gest to  him  discontinuance  of  the  work  for  a 
year,  for  fear  he  would  think  me  "green"  in 
California  ways. 

So  J.  D.  Whitney,  Senior,  financed  the  Cali- 
fornia Survey,  albeit  with  many  misgivings.  In 
the  end,  the  state  paid  him  in  full;  and  was 
never,  at  any  one  time,  in  debt  for  more  than 
a  single  year's  appropriation. 

With  such  slender  resources,  the  survey  be- 
gan its  second  season  of  exploration.  Ash- 
burner  went  east  to  finish  in  Brush's  labora- 
tory his  special  work  on  gold  and  silver  ores. 
That  done  so  far  as  funds  allowed,  he  left  the 
survey  and  returned  to  California,  to  the  less 
taxing  work  of  a  mining  superintendent.  By 
way  of  further  economy,  the  zoological  work 
of  Dr.  Cooper  was  suspended,  and  the  little 
that  could  be  done  without  him  distributed 
among  Gabb,  Brewer,  and  Whitney.  Thus  re- 
duced, the  survey  carried  the  reconnoissance 
of  the  previous  year  from  the  region  about 
San  Francisco  to  the  northern  end  of  the  state. 


214        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO  WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  3,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  This  is  to  let  you  know 
that  our  steamer  communications  are  opened 
again  and  that  we  are  now  going  to  have  a 
weekly  mail,  per  Dampschiff,  for  the  present,  in- 
stead of  an  uncertain  one  through  Indians  and 
snows.  .  .  . 

Our  camp  life  for  the  season  has  commenced. 
Brewer,  Hoffmann,  Gabb,  Averill,  and  a  vol- 
unteer by  the  name  of  Remond,  took  the  field 
last  week  and  are  now  inhabitants  of  a  cotton 
house  over  the  bay  in  Contra  Costa  County, 
near  Monte  Diablo,  where  I  left  them  last 
night  —  having  been  with  them  for  the  last 
five  or  six  days.  We  have  been  tracing  out  the 
Cretaceous  formation  —  which  runs  by  Monte 
Diablo  to  the  straits  of  Carquines  at  Martinez, 
opposite  Benicia.  .  .  . 

Our  present  party  bids  fair  to  be  a  very 
pleasant  one.  Brewer  is  a  capital  assistant; 
Hoffmann  does  as  well  in  his  place  as  anyone 
could  possibly  do.  He  is  a  German,  twenty-four 
years  old,  formerly  topographer  to  Lander's 
wagon-road  expedition,  with  a  capital  eye  for  hills 
and  orography  in  general,  and  no  vices.  Gabb 
is  young  and  rather  green  and  a  good  deal  self- 
conceited  ;  but  he  will  find  the  air  of  California 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     215 

very  salutary  for  such  cases  as  his.  He  knows 
Cretaceous  and  Tertiary  fossils  well,  and  that  is 
the  sum  and  substance  of  his  knowings.  He 
has  had  no  experience  in  the  field,  and  has  but 
little  idea  of  stratigraphical  geology.  He  draws 
fossils  well  and  has  already  materials  nearly 
ready  and  drawings  made  for  ten  plates  of  Cre- 
taceous fossils  of  the  size  of  Iowa  Report  plates. 
Besides,  we  have  as  a  volunteer,  a  young  French- 
man, named  Remond,  with  as  good  a  natural 
gift  for  finding  fossils  as  anyone  I  ever  saw. 
If  he  will  remain  with  us  and  the  survey  goes 
on,  he  bids  fair  to  make  a  capital  assistant  in 
the  field.  Averill  acts  as  mule-driver,  commis- 
sary, barometrical  observer,  etc.  A  young  Ger- 
man, namens  Schmidt,  is  our  cook,  vice 
Michael  Eagan,  retired  from  the  service. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  29,  1862. 
MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  ...  The  party  in  charge 
of  Brewer  .  .  .  are  now  working  down  the  west 
side  of  the  Monte  Diablo  range,  on  the  bound- 
ary of  the  San  Joachin  Valley,  hoping  to  get 
about  100  miles  in  the  course  of  the  next  month, 
and  then  to  cross  over  and  join  me  in  the  Sierra. 
We  have  worked  out  the  geology  of  the  vicinity 
of  Monte  Diablo  pretty  thoroughly,  and  made 
a  topographical  map  and  a  geological  on  a  scale 


216        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

of  two  inches  to  the  mile,  embracing  the  vicin- 
ity of  the  mountain  and  the  coal  beds,  now 
quite  extensively  worked.  We  have  determined 
the  mass  of  the  "mountain  to  be  made  up  of  Cre- 
taceous rocks  more  or  less  extensively  meta- 
morphosed. The  coal  lies  very  near  the  top  of 
the  Cretaceous,  and  is  undoubtedly  of  the  same 
age  as  that  of  Vancouver's  Island. 

We  have  also  learned  from  Dr.  Cooper's  col- 
lections that  the  Cretaceous  exists  at  San  Diego, 
and  also  carries  coal.  The  metamorphic  Creta- 
ceous contains  as  well  developed  mica  slates 
with  garnets  and  zircons  as  one  might  ask  to 
see  in  a  Paleozoic  region,  besides  a  variety  of 
other  rocks  which  have  a  very  ancient  look. 
[They  had  indeed,  previously,  been  mistaken 
for  ancient  rocks.] 

While  we  were  in  camp  at  Monte  Diablo  we 
had  a  visit  from  Rev.  Mr.  King,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
[Edward]  Tompkins,  and  Louisa,  and  Gorham 
Blake.  They  all  went  up  the  mountain  —  3876 
feet  high.  The  day  was  peculiarly  fine  and  the 
view  one  of  the  most  extensive  in  the  world, 
as,  owing  to  the  peculiar  formation  of  the  state, 
the  range  of  vision  is  almost  unlimited  from 
north  to  south.  We  saw  the  white  snow- 
covered  cone  of  Lassen's  Butte,  two  hundred 
miles  distant  in  an  air  line;  and  the  whole  chain 
of  the  Sierra  Nevada  was  spread  out  before  us 


UNIVERSITY    I 
,o^' 


OF 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     217 

to  the  east,  northeast,  and  southeast.  We  esti- 
mated that  the  area  over  which  we  could  see,  em- 
braced not  less  than  40,000  square  miles.  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  June  2, 1862. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, — .  .  .  Having  a  day  of  rest 
here  while  waiting  over,  in  order  to  deliver  a 
lecture  to-night  at  this  place,  I  brought  up  this 
unfinished  letter  to  be  mailed  in  time  for  the 
next  steamer.  .  .  . 

Yesterday,  Louisa  and  I  went  over  to  the 
anniversary  exercises  of  the  College  at  Oak- 
land, Mr.  King  delivering  the  address.  We 
took  the  occasion  to  examine  Dr.  [Wesley] 
Newcomb's  superb  collection  of  shells  —  one 
of  the  best  in  the  country,  especially  in  the 
department  of  land  shells.  He  has  in  all  between 
10,000  and  11,000  species.  Tomorrow  I  shall 
push  on  to  the  Calaveras  copper  mines,  and 
to  Mokelumne  Hill  and  Jackson  —  an  inter- 
esting mining  region,  which  I  have  not  yet 
visited.  Brewer  and  party  will  be  over  from 
the  Coast  Ranges  in  about  three  weeks,  and  we 
shall  work  up  the  foot-hills  of  the  Sierra  to 
Mt.  Shasta,  by  the  end  of  August,  and  we 
hope  to  go  to  the  Yosemite  early  in  July.  As 
the  coal  of  this  coast  is  Cretaceous,  and  this 
formation  runs  along  the  base  of  the  Sierra, 


218        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

we  hope  to  find  some  workable  beds  ...  on  our 
route.  We  have  carefully  worked  up  the  geo- 
logy and  topography  of  the  region  about  Monte 
Diablo,  as  being  a  sort  of  key  to  the  geology 
of  the  Coast  Ranges. 

I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  our  next  winter's 
report  will  contain  a  good  deal  of  interesting 
matter  to  the  scientific  world.  We  shall  be 
able  to  settle,  or  throw  a  good  deal  of  light  on : 
ist,  the  age  of  the  auriferous  rocks;  2nd,  the 
age  of  the  auriferous  detritus ;  3rd,  the  strati- 
graphy of  the  Sierra  Nevada;  4th,  the  age  of 
the  Coast  Ranges  and  their  structure ;  5th,  the 
phenomena  of  metamorphism,  etc.  Would  it 
be  possible  to  make  a  greater  change  geologi- 
cally than  to  come  from  Southern  Wisconsin 
to  California!  .  .  . 

My  views  on  mineral  deposits  will  receive 
an  ungeheure  Erweiterung,  as  it  appears  to 
me,  from  what  I  am  to  see  and  have  seen  on 
the  Pacific  coast.  The  whole  mode  of  occur- 
rence of  the  ores  is  so  different  here  from  what 
it  is  in  Europe,  that  I  am  beginning  to  feel  as 
if  it  were  here  that  the  solution  of  many  of  the 
problems  in  this  line  of  inquiry  were  to  be  ob- 
tained. Certainly  the  ranges  near  the  Pacific, 
from  Mexico  northwards,  constitute  clearly  the 
metalliferous  region  of  the  world;  and  yet  I 
am  beginning  to  think  that  there  is  no  such 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN    219 

thing  as  a  "  fissure  vein "  on  this  coast.  Cer- 
tainly as  the  Veta  Madre  and  Veta  Grande  of 
Mexico  are  described  to  me  by  the  most  intel- 
ligent miners,  they  clearly  are  not  true  veins. 
The  same  is  the  case  with  the  great  veins  of 
Washoe,  which  certainly  rival  anything  in  the 
world  in  extent  and  importance.  I  am  un- 
able to  bring  them  into  the  category  of  fissure 
veins.  I  hope  some  time  or  other  to  be  able  to 
combine  all  my  observations  on  veins  and  min- 
eral deposits  into  one  Arbeit ;  but  first  I  must 
see  Mexico  and  Chile,  which  can  easily  be  done 
from  this  coast. 

TO    PROFESSOR   G.   J.    BRUSH 

STOCKTON,  June  5,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  BRUSH,  — .  .  .  As  you  say,  I  am 
having  rather  a  hard  time  of  it  financially ;  but 
hope  to  get  through  with  it  without  collapsing 
entirely.  The  state  owes  me  $15,000  now,  and 
besides  this,  I  have  got  to  carry  on  the  survey 
for  from  three  to  six  months  longer  before  re- 
ceiving a  cent.  ...  I  do  not  think  there  is  any 
fear  that  the  survey  will  be  formally  killed,  but 
am  rather  disposed  to  think  that  the  appropria- 
tion may  be  so  small  that  I  shall  not  feel  disposed 
to  carry  on  the  work  any  longer.  We  can  do 
nothing  with  a  small  sum  in  this  great  state, 
and  with  so  many  branches  of  science  to  culti- 


220        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

vate.  Money  does  not  go  half  as  far  here  as  at 
the  East,  and  what  would  #7500  (half  of 
$15,000)  be  for  a  man  who  had  to  make  a  map 
and  complete  a  natural  history  survey  of  the 
region  extending  from  New  York  to  Florida 
and  back  to  the  summit  of  the  Appalachian 
chain,  supposing  no  more  to  be  known  of  its 
geology  and  topography  than  was  known  fifty 
years  ago  —  which  is  just  about  the  position 
we  are  in  here,  except  that  the  country  here  is 
ten  times  as  difficult  to  explore,  from  heat, 
want  of  water,  abundance  of  chaparral,  dis- 
tance of  settlements,  and  absence  of  roads.  I 
cannot  afford  the  wear  and  tear  of  mind  and 
body  merely  to  make  a  piddling  survey  with 
one  or  two  assistants,  and  the  necessity  of 
making  economy  the  predominating  thought. 
That  might  be  very  well  in  Vermont ;  but  it 
won't  pay  here.  If  the  next  legislature  will 
appropriate  not  less  than  $25,000,  we  will  go 
on.  ... 

As  to  your  magnanimous  offer  to  remain  in 
office  without  salary,  I  think  you  have  done 
more  than  your  share  of  that  already.  I  shall 
take  the  liberty  of  referring  to  you  as  the  Con- 
sulting Metallurgist  of  the  survey,  whose  dis- 
tinguished services  will  be  called  into  requi- 
sition, when  we  have  the  means  of  paying  for 
them. 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     221 


TO    PROFESSOR  G.   J.    BRUSH 
VIRGINIA  CITY,  NEVADA  TERRITORY,  July  28,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  BRUSH, — You  see  by  the  date  of 
this  letter  that  I  am  "over  the  border"  again; 
but,  in  truth,  the  interest  of  California  in  the 
Washoe  region  is  the  same  as  if  it  were  within 
her  own  dominions,  as  all  the  big  mines  are 
chiefly  owned  at  San  Francisco,  and  all  the 
business  goes  through  that  city  and  over  the 
Sierra  Nevada.  The  Comstock  lode  maintains 
its  reputation  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the 
world.  As  I  sit  now  writing,  I  can  look  out  of 
my  window  and  see  the  burrow  of  the  Ophir 
mine,  a  vast  heap  of  white  pulverized  quartz, 
which  has  been  the  refuse  of  the  mine,  but 
is  now  supplying  twenty-six  mills  with  material 
and  yielding  about  $40  a  ton.  I  saw  a  large  heap 
of  ore  at  the  Mexican  mine  a  few  minutes  since, 
worth  $3000  a  ton;  and  some  specimens  — 
would  n't  they  have  brough't  the  tears  to  your 
mineralogical  eyes?  Surfaces  of  a  foot  square 
covered  over  with  silver  wool —  I  don't  know 
what  else  to  call  it.  ... 

The  famous  Gold  Hill  mines  are  in  the  di- 
rect line  with  the  Comstock  lode,  and  only  one 
mile  distant,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  all 
one  lode.  But  the  Gold  Hill  yields  chiefly  the 
native  metals  and  so  rich  that  a  foot  of  the 


222        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

lode,  .  .  .  cannot  be  bought  for  less  than 
$10,000.  The  worst  of  the  Gold  Hill  is,  that  it 
is  cut  up  into  such  small  claims  that  it  cannot  be 
decently  worked.  Some  are  only  just  the  width 
of  a  shaft.  The  coal  mines  reported  as  having 
been  found  here  are  all  humbug  —  the  accounts 
of  the  Humboldt  mines  are  very  conflicting. 
...  If  you  wish  to  have  an  idea  of  rocks  and 
mountains,  you  should  come  here.  Such  a  be- 
wildering succession  of  ranges  I  never  beheld. 
It  is  utterly  useless  to  try  to  give  names  to 
them,  they  are  "  too  many  "  for  us.  Nature  has 
made  the  mountains,  but  has  forgotten  to  put 
in  the  trees  and  sparkling  water  courses  which 
ought  to  accompany  them. 

You  would  get  a  new  wrinkle  by  seeing  some 
of  the  big  hydraulic  mining  operations  of  the 
California  miners.  What  do  you  think  of  a 
man's  using  $140  worth  of  water  per  day,  with 
an  occasional  blast  of  a  couple  of  hundred  kegs 
(not  pounds)  of  gunpowder,  just  to  shake  up 
the  ground  a  little,  and  then  running  his  ma- 
terials over  three  tons  of  quicksilver  in  the 
sluices  ?  You  see  I  am  trying  to  set  forth  some 
of  the  attractions  of  the  country,  as  if  to  bother 
you  for  not  having  come  out  here. 

But  it  is  not  all  fun :  the  heat  is  intense,  the 
dust  fearful —  and  I  might  add  that  the  expense 
is  some. 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     223 

Interruption  of  a  half  an  hour  during  which 
I  have  secured  a  fine  lot  of  Cretaceous  fossils 
from  the  Humboldt  Range :  thus  gradually  we 
are  filling  up  the  blank  in  the  geological  map 
of  the  United  States,  and  wiping  out  the  Paleo- 
zoic, Metamorphic,  and  Laurentian ! 

Yours  sincerely, 

J.  D.  W. 

The  party  continued  to  work  northward  up 
the  Sacramento  valley,  until  early  in  the  au- 
tumn it  had  reached  the  region  of  Mt.  Shasta 
and  was  within  a  hundred  miles  of  the  state 
line.  Here  they  established  several  barometric 
stations,  and  prepared  for  the  solution  of  a 
somewhat  difficult  problem,  the  precise  height 
of  the  loftiest  peak  of  the  vicinity. 

TO    MRS.    WHITNEY 

CAMP  AT  BASE  OF  MT.  SHASTA, 
Sunday,  September  14,  1862. 

MY  DEAREST  PEASY, — We  are  camped  at  a 
place  called  Strawberry  Valley,  ten  miles  south- 
southwest  of  Mt.  Shasta,  which  rises  in  full 
view  before  us  to  the  height  of  a  little  over 
n,ioo  feet  above  us,  and  about  14,500  feet 
above  the  sea.  As  this  is  the  most  important 
fact  to  be  communicated,  I  will  put  it  first.  We 
left  Shasta  City  a  week  ago  yesterday,  leaving 


224        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Remond  to  observe  barometer,  and  very  discon- 
solate at  losing  his  chance  of  going  up  the 
mountain.  The  weather  was  intensely  hot  [so 
that]  at  noon  we  had  to  stop  and  camp. 
.  .  .  The  next  day  we  went  on,  and  were  three 
days  going  up  the  valley  of  the  Sacramento 
River.  The  valley  of  the  upper  Sacramento, 
to  this  place,  is  one  of  the  most  romantic  I 
have  ever  traveled  through ;  it  is  a  canon  all 
the  way,  with  lofty  steep  walls  on  each  side 
covered  with  the  most  magnificent  forests  of 
oak  and  pine.  The  former  gradually  die  out  as 
we  go  north,  and  here  we  have  only  pines,  firs, 
and  cedars  of  immense  size  and  the  greatest 
variety.  At  Shasta  City  we  got  fine  views  of 
Mt.  Shasta  from  all  the  neighboring  hills  ;  but 
it  was  not  until  we  came  within  some  twenty  or 
thirty  miles  of  the  mountain  that  it  was  fre- 
quently visible  on  the  road.  From  some  points, 
when  the  mass  of  Shasta  filled  up  the  back- 
ground with  the  river  and  its  walls  in  the  fore- 
ground, the  view  was  as  fine  as  could  well  be 
conceived. 

The  country  adjacent  to  the  river  is  entirely 
unsettled,  except  for  a  few  ranches  and  taverns 
used  as  stopping  places  along  the  road.  .  .  . 
We  reached  this  camp  on  Tuesday  night,  and 
pitched  our  tent  on  the  edge  of  the  pine  forest, 
on  a  carpet  of  strawberry  vines,  looking  across 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     225 

a  little  meadow  to  another  dark  forest  of  pines, 
above  which  towers  the  mass  of  the  mountain, 
the  lower  4000  feet  clothed  with  pines  and  firs, 
the  remainder  (7000  feet)  either  snow  or  bare 
rock. 

On  Wednesday  we  were  occupied  with  our 
observations,  and  in  getting  ready  to  go  up  the 
mountain.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  how  many 
different  stories  we  had  heard  on  our  way  up, 
about  the  mountain,  and  how  little  real  informa- 
tion we  had  obtained.  We  were  told  by  many 
that  nobody  had  ever  been  to  the  summit,  and 
that  it  was  entirely  inaccessible ;  by  others,  that 
five  hundred  persons  had  been  up  this  summer. 
Even  when  near  the  mountain  we  could  not 
ascertain  definitely  where  we  were  to  start  from. 

At  Soda  Springs  we  were  joined  by  a  per- 
son, who  desired  to  make  the  trip  up  the  moun- 
tain in  our  company,  and  we  engaged  him  as  a 
sort  of  guide  here  —  a  man  whose  only  quali- 
fications were  that  he  was  good-natured  and 
that  he  had  been  up  the  mountain  once  before 
(we  have  not  been  able  to  learn  of  any  persons 
having  been  up  twice). 

We  left  camp  at  Strawberry  Thursday  morn- 
ing, and  arrived  at  the  snow  line  in  the  after- 
noon ;  and  after  a  hasty  dinner,  turned  in  to  our 
blankets  early,  so  as  to  be  ready  for  a  start  at 
3  o'clock  the  next  morning.  Mr.  Hoffmann,  who 


226        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

has  been  quite  sick  recently,  concluded  that 
he  would  not  try  to  go  to  the  summit ;  so  he 
remained  in  camp  to  observe  the  barometers, 
and  Mr.  Brewer,  Mr.  Averill,  and  I,  with  our  so- 
called  guide  and  two  others  who  had  joined  us 
for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  constituted  the  party. 
We  were  on  foot  soon  after  three  and  com- 
menced the  ascent  by  following  up  the  snow  in 
one  of  the  deep  gorges  or  valleys  of  the  moun- 
tain. As  we  went  up,  it  began  to  be  harder  and 
harder  work,  and  when  the  sun  rose  we  found 
that  although  we  had  come  up  a  great  height, 
there  was  still  a  greater  one  to  be  overcome.  In 
front  of  us,  seemingly  but  a  little  way  off,  were 
the  so-called  Red  Bluffs  over  which  we  were  to 
climb,  and  which  was  the  highest  point  of  our 
route  which  we  could  see;  but  we  seemed  to  be 
forever  in  getting  to  them.  Below  an  altitude 
of  10,000  feet,  it  went  pretty  easily,  but  the  last 
4000  demanded  of  me,  at  least,  frequent  stop- 
pages to  get  breath.  I  felt  relieved  always  after 
stopping  a  few  minutes ;  but  the  sensation  of 
relief  lasted  only  a  very  short  time,  and  after  a 
few  steps  more  of  climbing,  I  had  to  stop  again 
to  get  breath.  Thus  the  higher  we  got  the 
slower  we  went;  but  all  of  us  reached  the  sum- 
mit, one  after  the  other,  I  last  but  one,  and  our 
guide  last  of  all. 

On  the  summit  all  looked  rather  tired  and 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     227 

some  were  soon  quite  sick.  ...  I  felt  dull  and 
heavy,  and  a  little  sleepy,  but  had  no  headache 
or  pain,  although  I  did  not  desire  to  eat  much. 
Some  looked  almost  black,  and  all  had  their 
eyes  more  or  less  bloodshot.  The  blood  settled 
under  our  finger-nails,  and  I  had  the  ends  of  the 
fingers  of  the  hand  with  which  I  supported 
the  barometer  all  the  way  up,  slightly  frost- 
bitten. .  .  . 

We  were  at  the  top  of  the  mountain  at  just 
about  12  o'clock.  We  suspended  our  two  ba- 
rometers, which  Mr.  Brewer  and  I  had  brought 
up  unbroken,  and  found  that  the  mercurial  col- 
umn stood  at  about  17^  inches,  which  would 
give  roughly  a  height  of  between  14,000  and 
1 5,000  feet.  We  shall  not  have  the  exact  height 
above  the  sea-level  for  some  time,  but  it  is  about 
14,500  feet  —  and  500  feet  higher  than  the 
Finster  Aar  Horn,  the  highest  mountain  in 
Switzerland. 

Whitney's  final  calculation  made  the  height 
to  be  14,442.3.  It  turns  out  to  be  60  feet  less, 
or  14,380,  so  that  the  accuracy  of  Whitney's  de- 
termination is  noteworthy  in  view  of  the  disad- 
vantages under  which  he  worked.  This  was, 
moreover,  the  first  accurate  measurement  of  a 
high  peak  ever  made  in  the  United  States. 

From   this   time   the  subject  of   mountain 


228        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

heights  took  on  an  especial  interest  for  Whitney. 
Three  months  later  he  wrote  his  brother :  - 

"...  If  there  is  a  set  of  the  'Zeitschriftfiir 
Allgemeine  Erdkunde '  in  the  College  library, 
will  you  be  good  enough  to  look  at  vol.  iv 
(1855),  and  see  on  what  authority  Mt  Hood  is 
put  down  as  1 8,360  feet  high  ?  I  have  been  look- 
ing up  the  subject  lately,  and  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  Mt.  Shasta  is  the  highest  moun- 
tain in  the  United  States  and  Popocatepetl  of 
North  America.  The  measurements  of  Mt. 
Hood  giving  1 8,000  feet  and  over  is  all  a  fiction." 

Whoever  the  authority,  he  was  wrong  by 
some  six  thousand  feet,  for  the  damp  climate 
of  the  coast  brings  down  the  snow  line  and 
makes  the  mountains  seem  higher  than  they 
are.  It  is  a  striking  commentary  on  the  state 
of  geographical  knowledge  at  the  beginning  of 
1863,  that  beyond  Mt.  Hood  stands  Rainier, 
higher  than  Shasta,  while  within  the  bound- 
aries of  California,  not  three  hundred  miles 
from  the  office  of  the  survey,  is  a  peak  which 
overtops  them  both. 

Two  years  of  labor  over  rocks  in  the  field 
and  maps  and  fossils  in  the  office  had  sufficed 
to  make  out,  in  a  general  way,  the  relations  of 
the  stratified  rocks  of  the  western  ranges  of 
California  and  of  the  great  central  valley. 
There  remained  for  the  task  of  the  next  two 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN    229 

years  the  great  lava  and  granite  peaks  of  the 
Sierra. 

In  April,  therefore,  of  1863,  while  Whitney 
and  Hoffmann  remained  at  San  Francisco, 
Brewer  and  Gabb  explored  the  southern  end 
of  the  chain  where  it  begins  to  drop  down  into 
the  Mojave  desert.  They  zigzagged  back  and 
forth  through  the  passes,  moving  gradually 
northward;  and  when  they  could  no  longer 
cross  the  range,  they  kept  on  along  its  west- 
ern flank. 

By  the  first  of  June  they  had  reached  the 
valley  of  the  Merced,  and  were  ready  to  begin 
the  attack  on  the  high  peaks  beyond  its  upper 
end.  Mrs.  Whitney  settled  down  at  the  Mari- 
posa  Big  Trees  to  read  a  station  barometer 
through  three  summer  months;  Whitney, 
Brewer,  and  Hoffmann  kept  on  up  the  valley, 
explored  the  region  which  is  now  the  Yosemite 
Park,  and  continuing  up  the  Yosemite,  entered 
the  high  mountains  beyond. 

In  the  following  letter  to  Professor  Brush 
the  unnamed  peak  is  the  one  afterwards  called 
Mt.  Lyell.  All  comparisons  of  altitude,  how- 
ever, must  be  taken  with  some  allowance :  Mt. 
Lyell  stopped  the  explorers  at  the  last  two  hun- 
dred feet,  while  the  great  knot  of  mountains 
which  Brewer  and  Gabb  had  skirted  earlier  in 
the  season  proved  to  be  higher  than  it  appeared. 


230        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO    PROFESSOR   G.   J.    BRUSH 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  10,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  BRUSH,  —  ...  I  returned  only  day 
before  yesterday,  from  a  most  interesting  trip 
in  the  High  Sierra,  between  the  Yosemite  Val- 
ley and  Mono  Lake.  We  found  the  mountains 
stupendous.  The  highest  points  of  the  Sierra, 
except  Mt.  Shasta,  are  there  at  the  headwaters 
of  the  Tuolumne  and  San  Joaquin  rivers.  Two 
peaks  rise  above  1 3,000  feet,  and  several  above 
12,000.  As  we  were  out  of  funds,  I  had  to 
leave  Brewer  and  Hoffmann  to  ascend  the  only 
peak  which  can  possibly  be  a  rival  to  the  one 
we  were  all  upon,  and  which  we  called  Mt. 
Dana,  believing  it  to  be  the  highest  mountain 
in  the  state,  except  Mt.  Shasta.  Brewer's  sub- 
sequent observations,  which  I  have  not  yet 
received,  will  settle  the  question,  as  there  is 
only  one  other  which  can  compete  with  it. 

The  view  from  Mt.  Dana  is  (we  reckon) 
the  finest  mountain  view  in  the  United  States. 
Language  can't  do  justice  to  its  grandeur. 
Literally,  hundreds  of  peaks,  snow-covered,  are 
around  you,  in  every  variety  of  fantastic  form 
and  outline.  And  farther  than  this,  we  are  in 
the  midst  of  what  was  once  a  great  glacier 
region,  the  valleys  all  about  being  most  su- 
perbly polished  and  grooved  by  glaciers,  which 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     231 

once  existed  here  on  a  stupendous  scale,  having 
a  thickness,  in  the  Tuolumne  Valley,  of  a  thou- 
sand feet,  and  having  left  splendid  moraines 
—  medial,  lateral,  and  terminal.  The  beauty 
of  the  polish  on  the  rocks,  covering  hundreds 
of  square  miles  of  surface,  is  something  which 
must  be  seen  to  be  appreciated.  So  come  on 
and  see  it,  and  bring  all  your  brothers  (in  sci- 
ence). The  Yosemite,  with  its  five  great  water- 
falls from  700  to  2500  feet  high,  is  not  a  small 
affair ;  but  did  not  seem  so  great  after  we  had 
camped  for  a  week  at  an  elevation  of  nearly 
10,000! 

Brewer  and  Hoffmann  are  now  on  their  way 
back  from  Aurora  by  the  Sonora  trail.  I  join 
them  in  a  few  days  at  the  Big  Trees,  and  back 
we  go  again  to  the  crest  of  the  Sierra  on  the 
Big  Tree  route,  and  so  zigzag  via  Washoe  and 
so  forth  up  to  Lassen's  Butte,  I  hope  by  the 
end  of  August. 

As  you  might  perhaps  suppose  that  Mt. 
Dana  was  named  after  some  other  man,  I 
might  add  that  the  Dana  intended  is  the  emi- 
nent V.  P.  of  the  N.  A.  S.  Tell  him  about  our 
glacial  discovery. 

Messrs.  Dana  and  Lyell  expressed  them- 
selves as  highly  gratified  over  the  honor  done 
them;  as  well  they  might,  for  a  thirteen-thou- 


232        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

sand-foot  peak  is  no  mean  memorial  for  any 
man,  while  of  all  human  monuments  few  en- 
dure like  place  names. 

For  the  rest  of  the  season,  the  party  kept 
along  the  higher  parts  of  the  Sierra,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  good  weather  reached  the  east- 
ern flanks  of  Shasta.  Two  letters,  written  at  this 
time,  afford  a  glimpse  of  surveyors  and  survey. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  November  14,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  As  this  is  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  day  we  were  put  ashore  to  grapple 
with  the  geological  structure  of  an  unknown 
region  of  unlimited  extent,  three  years  having, 
if  not  rolled,  at  least  hitched  and  scrambled  by, 
since  we  disembarked  as  aforesaid,  I  think  it  no 
more  than  fair  to  use  a  portion  of  this  day  in 
writing  home,  even  if  my  letter  bears  rather  a 
sombre  impress  from  the  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  three  years  have  not  sufficed  to  do  up  the 
geology  of  the  western  half  of  the  continent — 
much  as  we  have  sweated  to  bring  that  desirable 
end  about. 

I  returned  day  before  yesterday  from  the  field, 
having  been  engaged  for  the  last  three  weeks  in 
measuring  a  section  parallel  to  the  axis  of  the 
Sierra,  and  about  forty  miles  to  the  west  of  it. 
Brewer  is  still  near  Crescent  City.  .  .  .  Hoff- 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN    233 

mann  is  sixty  or  seventy  miles  southwest  of  here, 
finishing  up  a  corner  of  the  Bay  Map,  which  had 
remained  for  the  last  year  undone. 

By  the  way,  that  map  of  the  Bay  [of  San 
Francisco  and  vicinity]  is  a  beauty.  I  think  all 
will  acknowledge  it  to  be  the  handsomest  and 
most  correct  map,  of  any  as  large  an  area,  ever 
gotten  up  in  the  United  States,  unless  by  the 
Coast  Survey.  We  propose  now  to  commence 
on  the  map  of  Central  California,  scale  three 
miles  to  the  inch,  size  about  five  feet  square,  to 
include  all  the  principal  gold  regions,  the  main 
body  of  the  Central  Sierra,  and  the  eastern 
slopes  as  far  as  Virginia  City.  This  map,  I  cal- 
culate, will  take  four  years  to  finish  .  .  .  and 
the  topographical  work  this  winter  will  be  a  sort 
of  preparation  for  that.  .  .  .  But  I  won't  go  into 
detail  now,  lest  my  letter  become  as  long  and 
as  dry  as  a  geological  report. 

TO    PROFESSOR    G.    J.    BRUSH 

November  15,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  BRUSH,  — .  .  .  We  are  just  com- 
mencing our  spring  rains  (spring  commences 
here  about  the  middle  of  November)  after  a  very 
dry  and  dirty  time — as  you  might  have  realized, 
had  you  seen  me  two  or  three  days  ago,  rolling 
under  my  mule  in  dirt  about  twelve  inches  deep, 
with  a  barometer  on  my  back  at  that. 


234        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

We  are  gradually  coming  in  from  the  field 
now.  Brewer  is  at  Crescent  City,  waiting  for 
a  "hypothetical  steamboat"  to  come  down.  As 
the  line  is  withdrawn,  he  will  probably  come 
down  on  a  practical  stage-coach,  after  a  few  days 
more  waiting.  .  .  .  They  have  had  a  glorious 
trip.  .  .  .  They  were  on  Lassen's  Butte  at  sun- 
rise of  a  perfectly  clear  day,  and  the  view  must 
have  been  stupendous.  Gabb  is  on  Vancouver's 
Island,  and  will  return  in  a  couple  of  weeks  or 
so,  with  a  quantity  of  light  on  the  geology  of 
Oregon  and  the  region  north. 

I  hardly  know  what  we  shall  do  this  winter; 
but  the  first  thing  will  be  to  color  a  geological 
map  of  the  state  .  .  .  and  admire  the  fearful  gaps 
in  our  knowledge  of  the  range  and  extent  of  the 
formations.  ...  I  shall  make  no  strenuous  ob- 
jection, before  the  legislature,  to  a  discontinu- 
ance of  the  survey.  If  it  is  continued,  I  shall 
proceed  to  publish  a  preliminary  report,  and  also 
commence  the  publication  of  a  volume  of  pa- 
leontology, which  will  constitute  a  part  of  the 
final  or  permanent  report.  If  no  farther  appro- 
priations are  made,  I  shall  get  what  materials  I 
have  into  shape;  and  publish  as  well  and  as 
much  as  I  can  find  money  to  pay  for. 

The  action  of  the  legislature  which  came  to- 
gether in  the  winter  of  1863  was  especially 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     235' 

momentous  for  the  survey.  By  the  constitution 
of  California,  all  offices  created  by  the  legislature 
expired  by  limitation  after  four  years,  and  since 
under  the  new  constitution  the  legislature  it- 
self met  only  biennially,  the  size  of  its  appropria- 
tions took  on  a  double  importance.  The  new 
bill  was  distinctly  less  ambitious  than  the  old. 
It  suppressed  the  agricultural,  botanical,  and 
zoological  sides  of  the  survey;  it  slighted  the 
general  geology,  and  directed  the  State  Geolo- 
gist to  devote  his  farther  efforts  "  to  a  thorough 
and  scientific  examination  of  the  gold,  silver,  and 
copper  producing  districts  of  this  State"  and  to 
"such  scientific  and  practical  experiments  as 
will  be  of  value  in  the  discovery  of  mines  and 
the  working  and  reduction  of  ores."  It  cut  the 
stipend  of  the  State  Geologist  to  #4500,  allowed 
him  pay  for  two  assistants,  $5000  a  year  for  ex- 
penses, and  $6000  toward  publishing  two  vol- 
umes of  his  report.  The  precise  details  of  the 
appropriation,  however,  were  of  no  very  im- 
mediate concern  to  one  to  whom  the  state  was 
wont  to  be  ten  and  twenty  thousand  dollars  in 
arrears. 

The  act  was  approved  April  4,  1864,  and  on 
May  13  the  State  Geologist  and  his  family 
started  for  the  East  to  superintend  the  printing 
of  his  reports ;  for  printing  in  California  cost 
three  times  its  proper  price,  and  engraving  was 


236        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

not  to  be  had  on  any  terms.  The  field  work 
which  remained,  he  left  to  his  assistants. 

Unfortunately,  the  field  of  the  California 
Survey  now  included  only  "the  gold,  silver, 
and  copper  producing  districts,"  while  the  most 
pressing  of  its  unfinished  tasks  was  to  map  the 
unexplored  mountains  to  the  south  of  Mts. 
Dana  and  Lyell.  There  remained,  however,  a 
small  sum  from  the  last  appropriation  under 
the  original  act,  and  this  served  to  cover  the 
expenses  of  the  field  party,  and  to  do  something 
toward  the  salaries  of  the  scientific  staff.  When 
that  was  gone,  the  men  worked  for  nothing. 

The  survey  was,  on  the  other  hand,  unusu- 
ally fortunate  in  its  volunteer  assistants.  Clar- 
ence King  and  James  T.  Gardner,  recent  grad- 
uates of  the  Scientific  School  at  Yale,  and 
pupils  of  Dana  and  Brush,  having  leisure, 
means,  and  much  thirst  for  adventure,  had 
come  across  country  with  an  emigrant  train  to 
California.  On  their  way  over  the  mountains 
on  foot  from  Virginia  City,  in  August  of  1863, 
they  happened  across  Brewer  who,  having  worn 
down  his  exploring  party  to  a  single  packer, 
was  easily  persuaded  to  take  on  King  for  the 
expedition  northward  to  Lassen's  Peak  and 
Shasta.  The  next  year,  Gardner  also  volun- 
teered, and  with  them  went  as  packer  a  young 
Irishman  of  twenty,  Cotter  by  name,  whom 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN    237 

they  had  picked  up  on  the  emigrant  train.  No- 
thing could  have  fallen  out  better  under  the 
circumstances.  Gardner,  under  Hoffmann's 
training,  soon  became  a  skilled  topographer. 
Something  of  King's  quality  appears  in  the 
fact  that  after  three  years  under  Whitney,  and 
by  the  time  he  was  twenty-five,  he  was  head  of 
the  United  States  Fortieth  Parallel  Survey. 
King  could  climb  any  surface  to  which  human 
fingers  and  toes  could  cling ;  and  wherever  he 
could  go,  Cotter  was  ready  to  follow  him. 

One  would  like  to  dwell  on  the  campaign  of 
1864,  and  relate  how  Brewer,  with  the  disabled 
Hoffmann  tied  to  his  horse,  made  his  way 
through  the  wilderness  from  the  headwaters  of 
the  San  Joaquin  to  the  Yosemite  trail ;  or  how, 
when  lack  of  food  stopped  the  main  party  at 
Mt.  Brewer,  King  and  Cotter,  a  week's  provi- 
sions on  their  backs,  one  blanket  and  one  ba- 
rometer between  them,  lowered  themselves  by 
ropes  into  King's  River  canyon,  camped  with- 
out fire  above  twelve  thousand  feet,  ate  their 
food  frozen,  climbed  Mt.  Tyndall,  and  saw  from 
its  top  the  peak  which  has  turned  out  to  be  the 
highest  in  what  was  then  the  United  States. 

The  campaign  of  1864  was  a  splendid  piece 
of  adventure,  and  its  scientific  results  were  no 
less  splendid.  It  established  the  age  of  the 
gold-bearing  rocks  of  California,  and  it  added 


238        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

to  the  map  of  California  a  region  as  large  as 
Massachusetts  and  as  high  as  Switzerland. 
Whitney  had  forbidden  his  subordinates  to 
name  for  him  the  mountain  which  is  now  called 
after  the  Rev.  Lorentine  Hamilton.  This  time, 
in  their  chief's  absence,  they  stood  upon  their 
rights  of  discovery,  and  called  their  great  peak, 
Mt.  Whitney,  knowing  only  that  if  Mt.  Shasta 
had  a  rival  in  California  this  was  it. 

It  was  an  unusual  set  of  young  men  who 
took  the  field  under  Whitney  between  1860 
and  1865.  Their  chief  had  picked  them  care- 
fully ;  their  work  and  their  loyalty  to  him  and 
to  the  survey  amply  justified  his  choice.  One 
tie  they  had  in  addition  to  their  common  toil 
—  they  were  about  the  only  persons  in  Cali- 
fornia who  were  concerned  with  the  earth,  and 
were  not  trying  to  make  money  out  of  it.  On 
this  point  the  rule  was  absolute.  No  member 
of  the  survey  should  use  his  knowledge  of 
California  geology  to  make  a  penny  for  him- 
self. So  long  as  they  ate  the  bread  of  the  state, 
their  information  was  the  survey's,  and  the 
public's,  not  theirs.  Such  a  self-denying  ordi- 
nance may  be  a  strong  bond  among  men.  It 
becomes  doubly  strong  when  men  see  their 
leader  deliberately  turn  his  back  on  a  fortune, 
rather  than  break  his  lifelong  rule  never,  so 
long  as  he  might  be  called  upon  to  give  an 


SEARCH  AFTER  A  HIGH  MOUNTAIN     239 

opinion  upon  one  mine,  to  own  the  least  part 
of  any  other. 

The  toilsome,  happy  life  of  these  first  years 
of  the  survey,  has  left  its  mark  on  the  map  of 
California  and  in  the  museums  of  the  world. 
Mt.  Hoffmann,  Mt.  Gabb,  Mts.  Gardner  and 
King,  Mt.  Remond,  Lake  Eleanor,  attest  the 
regard  of  the  topographers  for  one  another  and 
for  the  naturalists ;  Helicoceras  Breweriana, 
Mactra  Ashburnerii,  Flabellum  Remondianum, 
and  a  dozen  other  Cretaceous  fossils  mark  as 
many  of  the  supreme  moments  of  a  collector's 
days.  The  paleontologist  was  a  distinctly  lo- 
quacious person.  One  can  imagine,  then,  the 
laughter  of  these  lean,  brown  men  when  Dr. 
Cooper,  the  serious,  the  unbending,  announced 
that  he  had  discovered  a  new  species  of  the  old 
brachiopod  genus,  Lingula;  and  that  in  honor 
of  his  friend  William  More  Gabb,  he  had  be- 
stowed upon  it  the  name  of  Lingula  Gabbii. 

Whitney  himself  had  no  marked  gifts  for 
pleasing  his  official  superiors ;  but  toward  his 
subordinates  he  was  a  different  man.  At  each 
new  camp,  he  was  the  first  to  be  out  with  his 
hammer ;  and  in  the  wise  and  genial  talk  around 
the  evening  fire,  he  was  less  the  State  Geolo- 
gist of  California  than  the  gay  Apothecarius  of 
Clover  Den.  He  was  kindly,  just,  unsparing  of 
himself;  and  his  associates  gave  him  not  merely 


240        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

esteem  but  affection.  With  one  of  them  in  par- 
ticular, he  formed  at  this  time  one  of  the  en- 
during friendships  of  his  life. 

Baron  -Friedrich  von  Richthofen  was  four- 
teen years  younger  than  Whitney.  He  had 
come  to  California  shortly  before  he  was  thirty, 
chiefly  to  study  volcanic  phenomena,  and  hav- 
ing some  private  means,  worked  only  irregularly 
for  the  survey.  Modest,  sincere,  affectionate, 
he  had  for  Whitney  a  worshipful  admiration, 
which  altered  to  a  regard  no  less  ardent  as 
Richthofen  himself  became  one  of  the  first  of 
living  geographers.  Richthofen's  geological  sur- 
vey of  China  was  Whitney's  idea ;  and  during 
its  progress,  Richthofen's  reports  of  his  doings 
reached  the  world  by  means  of  long  letters  to 
his  friend  and  adviser.  These  Whitney  edited 
(for  the  Baron  never  quite  mastered  English) 
and  transmitted  to  the  American  Academy 
and  other  learned  bodies ;  and  when  the  Japan- 
ese government  called  upon  Richthofen  for 
plans  for  its  national  schools  of  geology  and 
mining  engineering,  it  was  Whitney  who  pro- 
vided the  American  data.  Often  used  the  Baron 
to  recall  the  New  Year's  eve,  between  1867  and 
1868,  when  he  and  Whitney  sat  up  all  night 
and  planned  the  China  Survey. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    MIDDLE   YEARS    OF   THE   CALIFORNIA 
SURVEY.   1865-1869 

THE  three  and  a  half  years  which  comprise  the 
first  period  of  the  California  Survey  had  been  a 
time  of  ceaseless  activity  for  the  State  Geologist. 
He  had  lectured  each  year  formally  before  the 
state  legislature,  and  from  time  to  time  before 
other  bodies ;  he  had  labored  privately  with  legis- 
lators and  citizens.  He  had  carried  on  an  ex- 
tended correspondence  with  members  of  his  own 
family  and  with  various  men  of  science  in  the 
East.  His  yearly  report  to  the  Governor  kept 
the  public  acquainted  with  the  progress  of  his 
labors ;  he  had  communicated  with  the  scientific 
world  through  the  "  American  Journal  of  Sci- 
ence." He  served  as  chairman  of  a  commission 
which  drafted  a  plan  for  a  State  University,  with 
a  School  of  Mines,  a  School  of  Agriculture,  and 
a  State  Museum ;  and  he  spent  not  a  little  effort 
over  the  California  Academy  of  Sciences,  which 
Dr.  Trask  and  a  little  handful  of  devoted  natu- 
ralists had  founded  in  ^863,  the  first  scientific 
society  west  of  the  Mississippi.  His  duties 
had  varied  from  running  down  the  report  of 
a  meteorite  in  the  fastnesses  of  the  moun- 


242        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

tains,  to  rescuing  a  surveyor  whose  instru- 
ments had  been  held  up  by  the  custom  house. 
By  one  means  and  another,  he  had  kept  his 
survey  steadily  at  work  on  an  average  yearly 
appropriation  of  less  than  $16,000,  and  made 
one  dollar  do  the  work  of  two  in  a  land 
where  it  seldom  attained  the  efficiency  of  fifty 
cents. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  no  little  relief  that 
Whitney  settled  down  for  a  year  and  a  half 
at  Northampton  and  Boston,  "hearing  much 
music  after  the  long  fast,  .  .  .  dining  with  Judge 
Hoar,  Norton,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Holmes, 
etc.,"  honored  by  the  growing  friendship  of 
Agassiz.  He  had,  moreover,  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  the  scientific  world  approved 
his  work.  He  was  made  head  of  the  projected 
School  of  Mines  at  Cambridge,  with  indefinite 
leave  of  absence,  without  salary,  to  attend  to  the 
California  Survey;  the  American  Philosophical 
Society  made  him  a  life  member ;  he  was  one 
of  the  fifty  eminent  men  chosen  in  1863  to  f°rm 
the  National  Academy  of  Science. 

A  few  extracts  exhibit  Whitney's  states  of 
mind  in  an  uneventful  time. 

George  W.  Julian,  Member  of  Congress  from 
Illinois,  had  consulted  Whitney  in  regard  to  his 
bill,  then  before  Congress,  on  the  mineral  lands 
belonging  to  the  government. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  243 


TO    HON.    GEORGE   W.   JULIAN,    M.   C. 

BOSTON,  January  12,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  SIR, —  In  reply  to  your  favor  of 
the  tenth  ...  I  would  state  that  I  have  given 
much  thought  to  the  subject  of  the  policy  of 
the  Government  in  regard  to  the  management 
of  the  mineral  lands,  as  I  believe  it  to  be  a  subject 
of  vast  importance  to  the  country.  I  have  accu- 
mulated many  facts  which  demonstrate,  in  the 
most  conclusive  manner,  that  the  most  pro- 
found ignorance  of  everything  connected  with 
the  subject  exists  in  the  General  Land  Office 
and  the  Census  Bureau,  and  that  the  Govern- 
ment is  likely  to  be  greatly  misled  and  may  do 
a  great  injury  to  the  country,  if  it  allows  itself 
to  be  guided  by  recommendations  emanating 
from  the  Department  of  the  Interior.  .  .  . 

I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  see  how  any  plan 
could  be  devised  by  which  the  mineral  lands  of 
the  United  States  could  be  sold;  although  I 
am  not  prepared  to  say  that  such  a  one  might 
not  be.  Nor  am  I  certain  that  a  general  code 
of  mining  laws  might  not  be  made  by  Congress, 
based  on  the  Mexican  system,  which  would 
meet  the  difficulty.  .  .  . 

In  my  lectures  and  addresses  in  California, 
and  in  my  paper  presented  to  the  National 
Academy  of  Science  at  its  last  meeting,  I  have 


244        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

shown  that  the  progress  of  California  had  not 
been  what  it  should  be,  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  Province  of  Victoria  in  Australia;  and 
after  comparing  all  the  conditions  of  the  two 
countries,  I  have  been  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  the  defective  system  of  management 
of  our  public  mineral  lands  by  the  Govern- 
ment which  has  put  back  our  development  so 
much.  .  .  . 

In  addition  to  the  chronic  differences  of 
opinion  between  the  Californian  geologists  and 
the  Californian  speculators  in  mines,  a  short- 
lived boom  in  oil  lands,  contemporaneous  with 
the  oil  excitement  in  Pennsylvania,  threatened 
"  to  kill  the  survey  as  dead  as  a  door-nail " ; 
for,  as  usual,  there  were  marked  discrepancies 
between  the  prospectuses  furnished  by  pro- 
moters and  the  data  given  out  by  the  survey. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

BOSTON,  March  10,  1865. 

DEAR  WILL, —  .  .  .  Some  high  officials  have 
called  on  me ;  and  not  finding  me  at  home 
have  poured  out  to  Louisa  their  sorrows  at 
having  been  swindled.  ...  If  you  consider 
that  $40,000,000  or  so  of  bogus,  worthless  min- 
ing stock  has  been  set  afloat,  indorsed  and 
guaranteed  to  be  of  the  highest  value  .  .  . 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  245 

(two  companies  alone  have  $20,000,000  capi- 
tal), you  will  see  that  it  is  no  joke.  Ashburner 
has  been  down  to  the  "  Petroleum  Region " 
.  .  .  and  says  it  is  all  a  humbug,  and  all  the 
San  Francisco  papers  implicitly  admit  the  same 
thing.  Everybody  has  known  that  there  was 
asphaltum  in  California  in  abundance,  and 
many  attempts  have  been  made  to  get  oil  from 
it,  and  to  get  oil  by  boring,  but  all  have  proved 
failures,  although  some  hundreds  of  thousands 
have  been  expended.  [Francis  Humphreys] 
Storer  —  to  whom  I  referred  the  matter  for 
examination,  two  years  ago,  with  a  statement 
of  facts  —  reported  that  the  asphaltum  did  not 
furnish  a  valuable  oil  for  illumination.  He  says 
that  asphaltum  precludes  the  existence  of  pe- 
troleum :  they  are  entirely  different  articles. . . . 
It  is  not  for  me  to  act  in  the  matter ;  I  am 
too  much  an  interested  party;  if  ...  reports 
are  correct,  I  am  an  idiot  and  should  be  hung 
as  soon  as  I  get  back  to  California. 

TO    J.   N.   HOAG,    SECRETARY    OF   THE    CALIFORNIA 
BOARD  OF  AGRICULTURE 

BOSTON,  May  15,  1865. 

...  As  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned,  I 
should  have  no  objection  to  furnishing  an  arti- 
cle annually  for  the  Report  of  the  California 
Board  of  Agriculture.  My  whole  time  is  given 


246        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

to  the  service  of  the  state  and  I  should  be  per- 
fectly willing  to  use  a  portion  of  it  in  the  way 
you  propose,  if  the  legislature  will  authorize 
it.  You  are  mistaken,  however,  in  supposing 
that  such  a  thing  can  be  done  "  without  labor." 
I  am  not  one  of  those  who  can  scratch  off  an 
article  of  permanent  value  in  a  few  hours*  time, 
especially  on  a  subject  of  so  much  difficulty  as 
that  of  the  geology  of  California.  In  fact  we 
are  ourselves  only  learners  in  that  field.  With 
four  years  of  the  most  persevering  labor,  we 
have  only  just  begun  to  get  an  outline  of  the 
geological  structure  of  the  state,  and  it  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  we  shall  have  permission 
from  the  next  legislature  to  go  on  and  try  to 
fill  it  up.  The  survey  of  New  York,  commenced 
in  1836,  is  still  going  on,  nor  do  I  suppose  that 
it  is  expected  to  be  completed  "in  less  than  ten 
years;  and  yet,  while  California  is  four  times  as 
large* as  that  state,  and  while  her  geology  is 
ten  times  as  complicated,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
we  are  looked  upon,  by  many,  as  blunderers  be- 
cause we  have  not  already  got  through  with 
our  job ! 

If  Governor  Low  thinks  there  is  no  objec- 
tion, I  will  endeavor  to  prepare  an  article  as 
above  for  the  next  Report.  I  must  add,  how- 
ever, that  although,  in  my  own  case,  I  am  al- 
ready paid  by  the  state  and  would  accept  no 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  247 

farther  compensation,  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
other  gentlemen  associated  with  your  work, 
should  be  expected  to  contribute  their  labor 
gratuitously ;  nor  do  I  consider  that  anything 
of  value  will  be  obtained  unless  they  are  paid. 
I  have  never  observed  that  people  were  in  the 
habit  of  working  for  nothing  in  California,  and 
there  are  certainly  few  scientific  men  there  who 
are  rich  enough  to  be  able  to  do  so. 

Very  truly  yours, 

J.  D.  WHITNEY. 

Governor  Low  approved  the  project,  June 
20.  The  reports  were  out  of  the  way  by  the  end 
of  October,  one  large  volume  of  five  hundred 
pages  on  the  general  geology,  one  on  the  pa- 
leontology, —  on  economic  geology  nothing. 
Whitney  at  once  set  sail  with  his  family  for 
California,  despatching  from  the  steamer  a  last 
note  to  his  brother. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 
ON  BOARD  HENRY  CHANCEY,  OFF  CUBA,  November  6, 1865, 

IN  WHITE  PANTS  AND  STRAW  HAT. 

DEAR  WILL,  — ...  I  had  an  interview  with 
Baron  Stockl  at  New  York,  who  is  bent  on 
recommending  to  his  government  (he  is  the 
Russian  Ambassador,  you  know,  if  you  can  read 
the  name)  to  have  a  geological  reconnoissance 


248        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

made  of  Russian  North  America  under  my 
supervision.  He  seems  very  much  in  earnest 
about  it  and  was  overwhelming  in  civility.  .  .  . 
I  did  n't  say  yea  or  nay.  I  did  say  that  I  thought 
valuable  mines  of  the  precious  .  .  .  metals 
would  be  discovered  there.  So  much  the  geo- 
logy of  the  country  justifies  me  in  saying. 

The  romantic  days  of  the  survey  were  now 
over.  The  first  four  years  had  "skimmed  the 
cream  "  by  solving  most  of  the  greater  problems. 
There  remained  the  painstaking  detailed  work 
of  an  ordinary  geological  survey,  enlivened  by 
an  occasional  unexpected  find,  or  by  an  excur- 
sion inpartibus  infidelium.  One  great  problem, 
nevertheless,  remained  —  the  antiquity  of  the 
human  race  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Whitney,  in 
addition  to  his  other  labors,  turned  anthro- 
pologist, and  followed  up  every  find  of  human 
remains.  It  was  an  especially  important  ques- 
tion just  at  this  time,  when  the  caves  of  France 
and  Belgium  were  yielding  up  their  evidence, 
Darwin  was  at  work  on  the  "  Descent,"  and 
Lyell  just  bringing  put  the  first  edition  of  his 
"  Geological  Evidence  of  the  Antiquity  of 
Man." 

In  the  meantime,  there  were  changes  of  per- 
sonnel in  the  survey.  Various  new  men  came 
on.  Brewer  went  East  to  his  professorship  at 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  249 

Yale.  King  and  Gardner  were  loaned  to  the 
United  States  Government  for  the  exploration 
of  Arizona,  where  "  they  had  an  escort  to  pro- 
tect them  from  the  Apaches,  but  .  .  .  needed 
additional  assistance  to  protect  them  from  their 
escort/'  There  were  now  eleven  different  pub- 
lications of  the  survey  either  on  sale  or  under 
way;  while  the  State  Geologist,  in  addition  to 
his  responsibility  for  the  California  State  Uni- 
versity on  one  side  of  the  continent,  and  the 
Harvard  School  of  Mines  on  the  other,  was  now 
president  of  the  California  Academy  and  head 
of  a  new-made  board  of  three  commissioners  to 
manage  the  Yosemite  Park. 

TO  WILLIAM   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

SAN   FRANCISCO,  January  9,   1866. 

.  .  .  As  soon  as  I  receive  the  expected  vol. 
(I),  I  am  going  up  to  Sacramento  to  see  how 
the  land  lies.  .  .  .  Mr.  Gabb  has  gone  to  the 
southern  part  of  the  state  to  look  up  some 
doubtful  geology,  collect  Tertiary  fossils,  and 
examine  into  the  progress  of  the  oily  interest. 
Remond  will  leave  us  for  Chili.  He  expects  to 
return  again,  but  I  think  it  extremely  doubtful 
if  he  does,  as  his  lungs  are  much  diseased. 
Like  many  consumptives,  he  keeps  up  good 
courage  and  imagines  he  will  get  well.  Gabb, 
Cooper,  and  Remond  are  all  consumptives, 


250        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

but  Gabb's  health  has  improved  since  he  came 
out.  No  doubt  California  air  and  outdoor  life 
have  helped  him  much. 

I  hear  from  Cambridge  that  the  mining 
school  is  progressing  favorably ;  and  they  talk 
of  putting  up  a  building,  as  soon  as  we  can 
agree  on  a  place. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  8,  1866. 

.  .  .  As  an  old  Zuhorer  of  Bopp,  I  shall  be 
glad  to  subscribe  to  the  Bopp  Stiftung,  as  you 
suggest,  and  leave  it  to  you  to  fix  the  sum,  get 
the  money  from  Father,  and  otherwise  do  the 
needful.  I  shall  never  forget  that  I  too  might 
have  been,  or  become  a  Sanskritaner  ! 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  17,  1866. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  ...  My  own  health  is 
somewhat  better  than  it  was  when  I  wrote  last ; 
but  I  am  far  from  well.  Anything  like  worry 
of  mind  always  affects  me  physically,  and  I 
cannot  help  being  worried  about  the  survey. 
There  is  so  little  appreciation  of,  or  care  for, 
anything  but  money-making  in  this  state,  that 
it  is  terribly  up-hill  work  to  drag  this  concern 
which  I  have  been  pulling  at  for  five  years,  up 
the  hill  of  difficulty.  It  is  hard  enough  work  to 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  251 

do  to  carry  on  the  survey  even  if  it  were  ap- 
preciated and  no  obstacles  were  placed  in  my 
way.  While  I  could  not  help  being  secretly 
gratified,  or  at  least  relieved,  if  the  survey 
were  stopped,  yet  my  scientific  instincts  make 
me  fight  for  its  continuance. 

Strictly  in  confidence,  let  me  say  that  they 
have  sounded  me  from  Columbia  College  to 
know  if  I  would  take  a  professorship.  I  have 
made  no  reply.  ...  I  consider,  however,  that 
I  am  bound  to  Cambridge,  if  they  raise  money 
enough  to  pay  me  a  salary  —  as  I  suppose 
they  will  do  when  I  am  ready  to  go.  ...  On 
one  account  ...  it  would  be  much  easier  in 
New  York,  as  all  I  should  have  to  do  there 
would  be  to  lecture  and  instruct  in  geology,  and 
I  should  not  feel  that  I  had  the  concern  on  my 
shoulders  as  I  do  at  Cambridge.  .  .  .  The 
mining  speculators  are  as  bitter  against  me  as 
ever,  and  every  unfavorable  report  by  any  min- 
ing engineer  is  always  laid  at  my  door  —  or  at 
least  I  get  cursed  for  them  all. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  April  4,  1866. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  ...  My  four  visits 
to  Sacramento  have  not  been  without  fruit;  in- 
deed I  have  devoted  a  large  portion  of  the  last 
two  months  to  "  pulling  the  wires  "  of  the  legis- 


252        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

lature.  For  the  first  time  my  appropriation  bill 
went  through  without  a  word  of  dissent  in 
either  branch.  .  .  . 

The  Assembly  Committee  on  Mines  recom- 
mended $30,000  and  that  was  inserted  in  the 
general  appropriation  bill  by  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means.  At  the  same  time  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Mining  Committee  expressed  him- 
self as  highly  favorable  to  the  survey,  but 
thought  that  they  could  n't  carry  over  $30,000 
through  the  House.  After  the  bill  had  passed 
the  Assembly,  I  went  up  and  coaxed  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Finance  Committee  in  the  Senate 
to  introduce  an  amendment,  adding  $15,000 
for  printing  and  engraving.  This  was  done,  and 
my  friend  C.  B.  Porter  of  Contra  Costa,  a  real 
backer-up  of  the  survey,  deserves  a  large  part 
of  the  credit  of  inducing  the  usually  flinty- 
headed  Chairman  to  let  this  go  in.  The  amend- 
ment slipped  through  the  Assembly  without 
opposition  and  almost,  or  quite,  without  no- 
tice. .  .  .  The  $45,000  is  a  larger  sum  than 
has  ever  before  been  appropriated  "  at  one 
lick,"  and  besides  I  have  the  advantage  of 
not  being  hampered  in  any  way  in  the  spend- 
ing of  it.  It  is  mine  to  do  just  what  I  please 
with.  .  .  .  Still  $15,000  a  year  is  a  small 
sum  with  which  to  do  all  I  would  like  to  ac- 
complish. 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  253 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  18,  1866. 

.  .  .  The  great  excitement  now  at  the 
office  is  the  discovery  of  a  human  skull  at  a 
depth  153  feet  below  a  series  of  volcanic  beds 
with  intercalated  gravels.  I  have  just  returned 
from  the  locality,  and  we  have  the  skull  at  the 
office.  It  is  a  bony  fide  find  of  the  greatest  in- 
terest, all  the  particulars  of  which  I  shall  work 
up  with  the  greatest  care. 

Thus  ran  the  first  report  of  the  far-famed 
Calaveras  Skull,  probably  the  most  discussed 
of  all  relics  of  primitive  man  on  the  western 
continent.  Whitney  himself  maintained  it  to 
be  proof  of  a  Tertiary  race  going  back  to  the 
times  before  the  great  lava  flows  when  the  pre- 
sent mountain  tops  were  valley  floors.  Certain 
believers  in  special  creation  insisted  that  its 
original  owner  was  one  Jo  Bowers,  an  ill-fated 
miner  of  early  Californian  days.  The  question 
of  its  real  age  has  never  been  absolutely  set- 
tled, but  general  scientific  opinion  is  rather 
against  the  extreme  antiquity  which  Whitney 
assigned  to  man  on  the  Pacific  coast.  There 
is,  moreover,  some  doubt  whether  the  skull 
now  in  the  Peabody  Museum  at  Cambridge  is 
really  the  original  find  of  1866. 


254        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 


TO   J.    D.    WHITNEY,    SENIOR 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  28,  1866. 
MY  DEAR  FATHER, —  The  survey  is  going 
now  on  a  large  scale:  two  parties  are  in  the 
field  and  another  one  is  about  to  start.  This 
one  I  shall  myself  accompany  for  a  time,  until 
they  get  their  work  well  under  way. 

My  staff  at  present  consists  of  Messrs.  Gabb, 
King,  and  Hartwig  as  geological  assistants; 
Hoffmann,  Wackenreuder,  and  Gardner,  topo- 
graphers; Brinleyand  Coffey,  barometrical  ob- 
servers and  general  sub-assistants;  Bolander, 
botanist;  Cooper,  zoologist.  There  are,  besides, 
some  twenty  or  thirty  persons  engaged  in  draw- 
ing and  engraving  at  the  East.  So  you  see  that  I 
have  my  hands  pretty  full  to  manage  all  these,  es- 
pecially as  my  forces  are  so  scattered  abroad. 

We  have  been  very  much  troubled  because 
our  good  friend  Dr.  [Martin  John]  Burke  has 
not  been  renominated  for  the  office  of  Chief  of 
Police.  The  roughs  have  got  possession  of  the 
city  government  again,  after  being  kept  out  for 
ten  years  or  more,  and  I  fear  that  we  are  going 
back  to  the  old  days  of  rowdyism  and  crime. 
I  feel  more  disgusted  with  California  than  I 
ever  have  been  before,  even  when  the  state 
was  $15,000  in  debt  to  me.  By  the  way,  they 
are  not  paying  up  very  promptly  now.  .  .  . 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  255 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  January  18,  1867. 

. .  .  Music,  with  me,  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  I 
neither  play  nor  sing,  and  in  our  family  the 
music  has  gone  down  to  another  generation, 
and  my  only  connection  with  it  is  to  pay  Nora's 
bills.  Concerts  worth  hearing  are  entirely  un- 
known here,  and  the  opera  is  atrocious;  ...  I 
believe  that  four  is  the  number  of  my  attend- 
ance on  concert,  opera,  theatre,  or  public  amuse- 
ment of  any  kind,  since  I  first  came  to  Califor- 
nia; and  one  of  those  times  was  this  week  at 
the  Japanese  performance  of  gymnastics  and 
acrobatism  (if  there  is  such  a  word).  Everything 
about  this  was  curious  and  interesting. 

...  Of  late  I  have  been  much  engaged  with 
the  affairs  of  the  California  Academy,  as  we 
have  had  to  move  into  and  fit  up  new  rooms, 
and  have  tried  to  resuscitate  in  general.  We 
seem  now  to  be  in  a  fair  way  to  live;  but  when 
I  came  back  last  year,  it  seemed  as  if  it  was  as 
dead  as  a  door-nail.  We  have  now  a  pleasant 
reading-room,  with  a  goodly  number  of  scien- 
tific periodicals ;  and  are  fitting  up  our  meet- 
ing-room and  collections  in  a  respectable  man- 
ner. The  last  sheets  of  the  Proceedings  .  .  . 
will  tell  you  what  we  have  been  doing,  and  you 
will  notice  my  account  of  the  Skull,  etc. 


256        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  8,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  You  can  now  realize  the 
fact  that  a  man  who  has  only  just  turned  forty 
is  a  mere  boy;  it  is  only  the  old  chaps  just  ap- 
proaching the  fifties  who  are  the  patriarchs.  You 
will  realize  that  I  am  getting  pretty  old,  when 
I  tell  you  that  I  have  left  off  smoking  —  not 
having  had  a  cigar  or  pipe  in  my  mouth  for  the 
last  two  months.  I  see  your  book  advertised 
by  Triibner,  and  suppose  it  will  be  out  "by  and 
by"  like  the  reports  of  the  Geological  Survey. 

It  was  on  account  of  the  assurance  I  received 
from  Gabb,  Ashburner,  and  Osgood  [Putnam] 
that  the  survey  was  killed  by  the  discovery  of 
vast  quantities  of  petroleum,  which  we  had  over- 
looked, that  I  concluded  to  turn  my  thoughts 
to  Harvard.  Now,  since  all  [such]  statements 
have  been  proved  to  be  lies,  and  never  a  drop 
of  oil  found  in  the  .  .  .  ranch  where  .  .  .  there 
were  "fabulous  quantities,"  there  is  more  con- 
fidence in  the  survey  than  ever. 

Gabb  writes  me  in  frantic  language  about 

the  meanness  of in  his  behavior  to  their 

party  in  Lower  California.  .  .  .  According  to 
Gabb's  account  the  country  is  horribly  dry,  bar- 
ren, and  uninteresting  —  and  what  is  worse, 
destitute  of  fossils. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  257 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  9,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  L'homme  propose,  Dieu 
dispose,  as  the  fact  of  my  being  in  S.  F.  at  this 
time  clearly  demonstrates.  In  vain  I  keep  my 
saddlebags  packed:  I  get  no  chance  to  put 
them  across  horse  or  mule.  It  is  just  as  much 
as  I  can  accomplish  to  keep  straight  the  work 
of  others,  especially  when  every  detail  has  to 
be  watched  with  the  utmost  care.  .  .  . 

All  the  work  here  is  going  on  as  fast  as  I 
can  urge  it,  and  I  shall  soon  have  spent  the 
sum  total  of  the  appropriation  for  the  next  fis- 
cal year  ending  July  first,  1868! ! 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  May  12,  1867. 
.  .  .  Tell  Brewer  that  I  expect  Remond  up 
by  the  next  steamer  with  a  great  lot  of  interest- 
ing things.  But  I  have  little  hope  that  he  will 
ever  do  any  more  work ;  it  is  evident  from  the 
tone  of  his  last  two  letters  that  his  time  is 
nearly  up,  and  that  he  begins  to  realize  it  him- 
self. What  a  contrast  between  his  position  and 
that  of  King,  coming  up  in  the  same  vessel, — 
the  one  just  at  the  opening  of  as  fine  a  career 
as  ever  was  offered  to  a  scientific  man;  the 
other  with  finer  natural  abilities  by  far,  but  cut 


258        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

off  just  as  he  is  beginning  to  make  his  mark  in 
the  world.  Poor  fellow !  I  pity  him  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart ! 

Remond  died  before  the  end  of  the  month. 

The  "  we  "  of  the  next  letter  includes  only 
Mrs.  Whitney  and  her  husband,  who  have  at 
last  found  opportunity  for  a  long-planned  ex- 
cursion north. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  20,  1867. 
MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  Our  journey  was  quite  a 
successful  one  as  far  as  health  and  pleasure 
go :  I  wished  very  much  for  more  time,  however, 
as  one  month  is  very  little  to  see  Oregon, 
Washington  Territory,  and  British  Columbia  in. 
We  were  gone  just  thirty-two  days.  By  sea  to 
Portland,  stop  there  a  day,  then  up  the  river 
to  the  Dalles  and  back  to  Portland,  .  .  .  across 
by  land  to  Olympia,  head  of  Puget's  Sound ; 
then  by  boat  touching  at  all  points  on  the 
Sound  to  Victoria,  .  .  .  New  Westminster  and 
back ;  then  to  Salem  by  boat,  then  by  stage  to 
Dorvill,  California,  and  home  by  railway  and 
steamboat  .  .  .  stopping  over  about  thirty  hours 
at  Yreka  to  rest  and  have  a  good  look  at  Mt. 
Shasta.  We  rode  two  consecutive  nights  in  a 
road  wagon,  never  stopping  from  the  time  we 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  259 

left  Salem  until  we  reached  Jacksonville  [the 
airline  distance  is  175  miles],  when  we  had 
six  hours'  rest.  I  was  not  tired  at  all  when  we 
reached  S.  F.,  nor  does  Louisa  seem  to  have 
had  any  ill  effects  from  the  journey.  .  .  . 

I  was  extremely  anxious  to  go  farther  up  the 
Fraser  River :  but  it  seemed  as  if  one  month 
was  all  that  I  could  take  for  my  absence.  I  got 
many  geological  facts  of  interest  to  supplement 
Gabb's  work  of  1864  and  1865. 

Of  course,  one  of  the  great  points  was  to  see 
the  big  mountains,  Hood,  St.  Helens,  Adams, 
Rainier,  and  Baker ;  and  we  were  favored  by 
the  weather  so  that  we  saw  them  all  to  advan- 
tage, especially  the  three  nearest  the  Columbia. 
.  .  .  The  view  of  Rainier  from  the  boat  as  we 
passed  the  head  of  an  arm  of  the  Sound  .  .  . 
produced  an  impression  of  greater  height  and 
grander  mass  than  either  of  the  other  mountains 
gave.  But  the  position  of  Rainier  is  not  suffi- 
ciently well  fixed  to  enable  me  to  get  an  idea 
of  its  height.  ...  I  should  think,  however, 
judging  by  the  eye,  that  it  is  the  highest  of  all 
the  Oregon  and  Washington  mountains.  .  .  . 
My  arrangements  had  all  been  made  to  ascend 
Hood ;  but  on  seeing  [Col.  Robert  S.]  William- 
son, I  found  that  he  intended  to  send  a  party 
up  in  August  better  provided  with  instruments 
than  I  was.  So  I  left  the  work  for  him  to  do, 


260        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

which  I  was  the  more  inclined  to  do,  as  I  found 
that  it  would  cost  me  about  #200  and  ten  days' 
time  to  make  the  trip,  while  it  was  too  early  in 
the  season  to  have  a  good  chance  to  examine 
the  rocks,  as  the  snow  came  almost  down  to 
the  base  of  the  mountain. 

I  was  convinced  from  all  that  I  could  learn, 
that  there  is  no  difficulty  or  danger  in  going 
up  any  of  these  mountains,  and  that  the  cock- 
and-bull  stories  told  by  W and  others  are  all 

humbug.  The  measurement  of  Hood  published 

by  "W was  in  reality  made  by  Rev.  Mr. 

Atkinson  of  Portland,  who  carried  up  his  ther- 
mometer, one  .  .  .  with  a  heavy  metallic  scale, 
and  who  made  the  observations  and  calculated 
them  by  a  rule  given  in  "  Porter's  Chemistry." 
Of  course,  under  the  circumstances  no  sort  of 
approximation  to  the  truth  could  have  been  ex- 
pected. The  best  joke  is  that  Rev.  Mr.  H , 

whose  pretended  measurement,  as  communi- 
cated to  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  is 
noticed  in  the  May  number  of  the  "  American 
Journal  [of  Science],"  never  carried  up  any 
instrument  at  all,  as  I  ascertained  from  those 
who  went  with  him. 

The  views  of  Hood,  St.  Helens,  and  Adams, 
from  near  the  mouth  of  the  Willamette  in  a 
clear  day,  are  indeed  wonderfully  beautiful. 
The  mountains  impose  on  one  exceedingly  be- 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  261 

cause  they  rise  so  high  above  their  bases.  .  .  . 
All  have  been  ascended  except  Rainier.  ... 

If  we  have  taken  down  Mt.  Hood  consider- 
ably, I  regret  to  say  that  we  have  done  the 
same  by  the  Big  Trees.  The  trees  in  the  Mari- 
posa  grove  have  all  been  plotted  and  measured, 
and  not  one  of  them  reaches  three  hundred 
feet.  The  highest  is  272.  .  .  .  In  the  Calaveras 
grove  there  are  two,  and  two  only,  which  exceed 

300  feet.  .  .  .  J 's  measurements  are  all 

wrong  —  from  thirty  to  sixty  feet  out  of  the 
way !  ...  By  the  way,  D'  Heureuse  [an  assist- 
ant of  the  survey]  has  discovered  a  monstrous 
grove  of  Big  Trees  ...  on  the  head  of  Tule 
River ;  the  largest  eighty-three  feet  in  circum- 
ference. He  has  not  sent  me  a  full  account  yet. 

Gabb  and  party  are  somewhere  between  the 
White  Mountains  and  Death  Valley.  ...  I 
hope  they  are  doing  well ;  but  they  have  a  hard 
job  before  them.  I  intend  to  go  out  to  meet 
them  in  about  three  weeks,  to  see  how  they  are 
getting  on  and  help  in  some  of  the  astronomi- 
cal work.  We  go  next  to  the  Yosemite,  Hoff- 
mann and  I  with  Louisa  and  Nora. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

September  17,  1867. 

.  .  .  I  had  a  most  interesting  trip  [in  southern 
Nevada] ;  but  did  not  find  Gabb  and  party, 


262        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

and  presume  they  have  gone  far  south  of  all 
settlements  .  .  .  straight  across  to  ...  the 
southeast  corner  of  the  state.  .  .  .  The  fact 
that  bad  news  always  travels  fast,  leads  me  to 
believe  that  they  have  not  come  to  grief ;  but  I 
shall  be  much  relieved  when  news  from  them 
turns  up. 

Although  I  failed  to  meet  Gabb,  I  accom- 
plished a  good  deal,  considering  the  shortness 
of  the  time ;  saw  the  mines  and  mills  of  Aus- 
tin and  vicinity,  got  a  general  idea  of  the  geo- 
logy and  physical  character  of  the  country, 
and  enjoyed  the  trip  very  much,  spite  of  alkali 
dust  and  heat.  On  the  way  out,  at  the  first  station 
beyond  Virginia  City,  we  were  gone  through 
by  the  "road  agents,"  i.  e.  highwaymen,  in  the 
neatest  and  most  scientific  manner.  .  .  .  They 
took  from  me  a  little  over  $200,  but  left  me 
my  two  chronometers,  so  that  I  felt,  on  the 
whole,  as  if  I  had  rather  made  money  by  the 
operation. 

Hoffmann  is  getting  on  finely  with  his  party. 
They  are  now  in  the  big  canyon  of  the  Tuo- 
lumne,  and  will  be  back  here  in  about  ten  days. 
You  and  Brewer  will  be  glad  to  learn  that  they 
have  a  lot  of  fine  photographs  of  the  High 
Sierra,  glacial  surfaces,  moraines,  and  all  that. 
They  were  in  the  region  of  soda  springs,  up 
Mt.  Dana,  etc.,  and  got  photographs  from  those 
points. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  263 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  January  27,  1868. 

.  .  .  The  last  steamer  brought  50  copies  of 
the  Bay  map  from  Bien,  au  naturel,  the  swamps 
a  little  blurred  by  rapid  printing,  but  otherwise 
looking  very  well.  It  was  lucky  that  they  came 
as  they  did,  for  I  go  up  to  Sacramento  on 
Wednesday  to  address  the  legislature,  and 
should  have  been  very  sorry  to  have  failed  to 
have  some  copies  of  the  map  to  show.  I  had 
two  or  three  gaily  colored  and  mounted  and 
can  now  sail  into  the  legislature  with  flying 
colors. 

...  If  the  legislature  does  not  respond 
pretty  soon  to  my  address,  I  shall  commence 
packing  and  getting  things  in  order  for  an 
eastward  march.  The  disgust  with  California 
that  I  have  had  since  the  legislature  voted  to 
ask  Congress  to  give  the  settlers  in  the  Yosem- 
ite  Valley  160  acres  of  land  apiece,  has  been 
so  great  that  I  feel  less  inclined  than  ever  to 
remain  here.  The  hope  that  the  Governor  will 
veto  the  bill  is  my  consolation  at  present.  But 
even  if  he  does,  the  whole  proceeding  shows 
such  a  depraved  condition  of  public  feeling . . . 
that  the  legislature,  the  state,  and  the  people 
have  become  disgusting  to  me.  I  am  afraid  that 
I  shall  be  saucy  in  my  address,  but  I  cannot 


264        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

help  it.  The  Governor  [Henry  H.  Haight]  is 
all  right  on  the  survey  question,  as  he  took  oc- 
casion to  inform  me  by  letter. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  26,  1868. 

.  .  .  The  prospects  of  the  survey  remain  as 
uncertain  as  ever.  Two  committees  have  been 
at  the  office  and  exhibited  even  more  than 
their  usual  amount  of  stupidity  and  ignorance. 
Since  the  Yosemite  Valley  bill  passed  over  the 
Governor's  veto,  I  feel  so  disgusted  with  Cali- 
fornia that  I  can  hardly  stand  it  much  longer. 
Still  I  am  running  the  survey  along  in  a  small 
way  at  my  own  expense,  waiting  to  see  what 
the  jackasses  at  Sacramento  will  do.  .  .  . 

...  I  am  told,  on  good  authority,  that  this 
legislature  is  by  far  more  corrupt  and  reckless 
than  any  of  its  predecessors.  It  is  a  fact  —  at 
least  everybody  believes  it  to  be  —  that  votes 
can  only  be  had  this  year  by  purchase.  I  have 
been  semi-officially  notified  that  I  must  come 
down  with  $2000,  if  I  want  my  bill  to  pass. 
Considering  all  the  circumstances,  I  do  not 
think  it  prudent  for  me  to  expend  any  more 
money  on  the  survey;  and  unless  you  have 
received  a  telegram  from  me  to  the  contrary 
before  you  get  this  letter,  you  will  please  to 
make  no  more  payments  for  the  survey  with- 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  265 

out  my  special  authority.  ...  I  have  written 
to  Gabb  to  discontinue  his  work,  and  to  Baird 
to  do  the  same,  unless  he  receives  telegraphic 
information  through  you,  to  go  on,  before  my 
letter  mailed  by  this  steamer  reaches  him. 

While  Hoffmann  and  Wilson  were  down  at 
Santa  Barbara  on  a  private  survey,  I  got  them 
to  make  a  detailed  topographical  survey  of  the 
"  oil  region,"  that  is,  of  those  ranches  where  all 
the  work  was  done  during  the  excitement  in 
the  way  of  procuring  petroleum  by  tunnels. 
Everything  is  deserted  there  now;  and  they 
admit  that  it  would  not  pay  to  barrel  the  stuff, 
if  they  had  it  on  the  surface  all  ready  to  hand. 

TO  WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  29,  1868. 

We  have  had  a  nice  little  time  of  it  in  the 
legislature.  The  petroleum  and  other  swind- 
lers made  a  dead  set  on  the  survey  and  killed 
it,  having  malleable  material  to  work  with  in 
the  Democratic  legislature.  ...  A  deficiency 
bill  of  $15,000  appropriation  to  wind  up  the 
survey  with,  passed  the  Senate,  but  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  it  is  reached  on  the  Assembly's 
file  before  adjournment.  If  that  does  not  pass, 
all  the  property  of  the  survey  is  left  on  my 
hands  to  pay  myself  with.  The  committees  in 
the  Assembly  and  Senate  both  made  favorable 


266         JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

reports  and  recommended  large  appropriations; 
but  the  swindlers  are  too  strong.  We  were  es- 
pecially unfortunate  in  having  in  the  Senate  a 
man,  the  fugleman  of  the  Democracy,  a  veteran 
politician  and  a  former  United  States  Surveyor 
General,  under  whose  administration  the  fraud- 
ulent surveys  in  the  southern  part  of  the  state 
were  made,  and  the  character  of  which  is  being 
exposed  as  fast  as  our  work  covers  the  ground. 
Of  course  he  fought  against  us  with  all  his 
might. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  April  13,  1868. 

.  .  .  For  the  past  few  weeks  I  have  been 
packing  and  winding  up  business  with  4O-horse 
power  speed.  .  .  .  We  have  concluded  to  sail 
on  the  3oth  of  this  month.  .  . .  We  have  wound 
up  housekeeping,  sold  out  our  furniture,  and 
moved  to  a  hotel  —  a  big  job.  Are  now  pack- 
ing at  the  office  and  storing  the  collections 
away.  .  .  .  Everybody  thinks  that  the  next 
legislature  will  repair  the  damage  done  to  the 
survey  as  far  as  possible :  the  indignation  at  its 
stoppage  is  very  general.  There  is  a  good  deal  oi 
talk  of  raising  a  private  subscription  to  carry  on 
the  work.  Perhaps  I  may  get  enough  to  publish 
two  or  three  volumes  during  the  next  two  years. 

"  Petroleum  "  is  what  has  killed  us.  By  the 


->  8, 


§  I 
§  fi 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  267 

word  "petroleum,"  understand  the  desire  to 
sell  worthless  property  for  large  sums  and  the 
impolicy  of  having  anybody  around  to  interfere 
with  the  little  game.  ... 

The  situation  of  the  State  Geologist  of  Cali- 
fornia was  now  a  most  embarrassing  one.  The 
legislature  had  neither  stopped  the  survey,  nor 
continued  it.  All  the  property  of  the  survey, 
the  finished  and  unfinished  publications,  had 
simply  been  left  on  Whitney's  hands,  with 
neither  means  to  continue  any  part  of  his  work 
nor  authority  to  bring  it  to  an  end.  Fortunately, 
however,  he  had  the  loyal  support  of  Governor 
Haight,  who  encouraged  him  to  believe  that  a 
later  legislature  might  be  persuaded  to  repair 
the  damage  done  by  this.  Whitney,  therefore, 
stored  the  collections  under  charge  of  Hoff- 
mann ;  and  with  them  such  of  the  instruments 
as  von  Richthofen  did  not  carry  off  to  China. 

Whitney  himself  hired  the  furnished  house 
of  Professor  Asa  Gray  at  the  Botanical  Gardens 
in  Cambridge,  and  settling  down  to  the  un- 
eventful life  of  a  university  teacher,  he  got  the 
new  Mining  School  under  way,  and  brought 
out  at  his  own  expense,  two  more  volumes  of  the 
California  Survey,  the  second  of  the  paleonto- 
logy, and  a  popular  scientific  guide  to  the  region 
adjacent  to  the  Yosemite  Valley. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  LAST  YEARS   OF  THE   CALIFORNIA 
SURVEY.     1869-1874 

Two  years  Professor  Whitney  stood  to  his 
teaching  before  he  turned  once  more  to  the 
wilderness.  There  were  four  students  in  his 
first  class  at  the  Mining  School,  the  class  of 
1869;  and  by  way  of  rounding  off  their  pro- 
fessional training,  Whitney  set  them  at  work 
on  an  unsolved  problem  in  geography  on  which 
he  was  himself  engaged.  There  were  rumors  in 
geographical  circles  of  eighteen-thousand-foot 
peaks  in  central  Colorado,  at  the  culminating 
point  of  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  of  peaks  there- 
fore, which  certainly  rivaled,  and  which  might 
surpass,  the  high  places  of  the  Sierra  Nevada 
and  the  great  volcanoes  of  the  Pacific  coast. 
During  the  winter  and  spring  of  1869,  there- 
fore, Whitney  took  his  four  apprentices  into 
his  study,  to  struggle  under  his  practiced  guid- 
ance with  the  discordant  evidence  of  travelers' 
tales  and  government  reports.  After  they  had 
learned  all  that  was  to  be  had  from  books,  they 
were  to  attack  the  problem  on  the  ground. 

Whitney   himself,    Brewer,  and    Hoffmann 
were  the  backbone  of  the  summer  field  party ; 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  269 

and  besides  the  four  students  there  were  two 
instructors  from  the  Mining  School.  They 
took  up  their  mapping  on  the  main  ridge  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  west  of  Denver,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  summer  had  settled  the  main 
features  of  its  topography.  The  usual  results 
followed.  The  eighteen-thousand-foot  summits, 
fairly  confronted  with  barometer  and  level, 
promptly  shed  a  fourth  of  their  reputed  height, 
and  shrank  to  the  dimensions  of  the  California 
peaks.  The  accurate  measurement  of  high 
mountains,  however,  is  a  difficult  art;  and 
Whitney,  in  general,  tended  somewhat  to  ex- 
aggerate altitudes.  But  his  estimate  of  relative 
heights  has  turned  out  to  be  pretty  correct, 
while  a  mistake  of  even  five  hundred  feet  may 
be  forgiven  to  one  who  is  correcting  an  error 
of  five  thousand.  Mt  Harvard,  Mt.  Yale,  and 
Mt  Princeton,  three  great  peaks  of  Colorado, 
are  among  the  mementos  of  the  summer  of  1 869 
when  Hoffmann  taught  four  students  to  handle 
a  transit. 

All  through  the  suspension  of  the  survey, 
Whitney  had  been  encouraged  to  hope  that  the 
legislature  of  1870  would  reverse  the  action  of 
that  of  1868,  and  order  a  resumption  of  the 
work.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  new  legislature 
convened,  Whitney  repaired  to  California  and 
laid  siege  to  the  new  body.  Of  his  scientific 


270        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

friends  in  the  East,  Dana,  Henry,  Guyot,  and 
Agassiz  gave  special  aid ;  while  of  the  Califor- 
nians,  Leland  Stanford  lent  the  weight  of  his 
very  considerable  influence  and  Edward  Tomp- 
kins,  who  was  state  senator,  took  charge  of  the 
details  of  the  campaign.  Governor  Haight  was, 
as  always,  favorable.  Among  them  the  bill  went 
through. 

Meanwhile  Professor  Asa  Gray  returned  to 
Cambridge  and  claimed  his  house.  Luckily, 
however,  Whitney's  old  friend  and  cousin  by 
marriage,  B.  A.  Gould,  was  made  head  of  the 
government  observatory  in  the  Argentine  Re- 
public, and  left  vacant  for  the  Whitneys  his 
house  at  12  Oxford  Street.  To  the  question, 
therefore,  where  he  lived,  Whitney  made  an- 
swer: "I  am  staying  [in  Boston]  at  the  Parker 
House;  my  family  is  in  Brookline;  I  have  a 
house  in  Cambridge ;  my  library  and  collections 
are  in  Northampton,  and  my  office  and  busi- 
ness at  San  Francisco."  That  year  Whitney 
crossed  the  continent  four  times. 

TO    F.   VON   RICHTHOFEN,    AT   SHANGHAI,    CHINA 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  14,  1870. 
DEAR  BARON  :  — 

I  think  I  wrote  you  of  the  passage  of  the 
survey  bill  through  the  legislature  with  an  ap- 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  271 

propriation  of  $48,000  for  two  years,  besides 
$25,000  to  pay  arrearages. 

We  are  all  under  full  headway  now.  Hoff- 
mann and  party,  with  Goodyear  as  geologist, 
took  the  field  in  April  and  have  been  exploring 
the  Inyo  Range  and  north  to  Mono  Lake,  on 
the  east  side  of  Owen's  Valley.  They  are  now 
at  Aurora.  I  am  going  to  join  them,  and  cross 
the  Sierra,  exploring  the  region  between  the 
Tuolumne  and  the  Stanislaus.  There  is  also  a 
party  mapping  the  detailed  topography  and 
geology  of  Yuba  and  Nevada  counties,  and 
Wackenreuder  starts  out  in  a  few  days  to  finish 
up  his  work.  One  quarter  of  the  Central  Cali- 
fornia map  is  nearly  engraved,  and  is  a  very 
fine  piece  of  work.  The  first  volume  of  the 
"  Birds  "  is  going  through  the  press,  and  the 
sheets,  as  printed,  go  to  the  colorist  in  Phila- 
delphia, who  is  busily  at  work  on  them.  The 
work  on  the  Botany  is  being  busily  pressed  for- 
ward, and  Brewer  will  give  his  whole  time  to 
it,  and  Professor  Gray  a  large  part  of  his.  The 
worst  feature  is  that  there  is  no  money  in  the 
state  treasury,  so  that  it  is  pretty  tight  squeez- 
ing to  get  so  big  a  work  along.  I  went  east  in 
May,  and  have  been  back  ten  days.  Mrs.  Whit- 
ney was  taken  sick  shortly  after  my  arrival  at 
Boston  and  .remained  in  a  very  critical  condi- 
tion until  a  few  days  before  I  left  to  return. 


272        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

She  seems  now  to  be  gaining,  although  slowly. 
I  have  taken  a  house  in  Cambridge  and  expect 
to  return  there  in  September,  as  I  have  to  lec- 
ture in  the  University  this  coming  winter,  hav- 
ing promised  to  do  so  before  the  continuance 
of  the  survey  had  been  ordered.  My  subject 
is  "Structural  and  Dynamic  Geology."  The 
work  of  the  survey  will  go  on  without  interrup- 
tion, however,  and  I  shall  return  here  again  in 
May.  I  am  obtaining  additional  evidence  all 
the  time  of  the  great  antiquity  of  man  on  this 
coast,  and  shall  have  an  interesting  chapter  on 
that  subject,  in  the  next  volume  of  the  Geology. 
The  hammers,  etc.,  you  are  most  welcome  to : 
I  am  glad  to  contribute  that  much  to  your  great 
work. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  i,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., — Yours  of  the  loth  of 
July  was  found  on  my  table  last  night,  as  I 
arrived,  dusty  and  dirty,  from  the  mountains. 
Also,  among  heaps  of  others,  one  from  Brewer, 
informing  me  that  my  Alma  Mater  had 
honored  me  to  a  degree  [LL.D.]  that  I  cer- 
tainly never  expected.  Had  I  appeared  before 
the  Corporation  in  my  yesterday's  rig,  with  be- 
grimed linen  duster,  skinny  and  shiny  red 
nose,  awfully  battered  hat,  greasy  pants  stuck 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  273 

in  my  boots,  and  so  on,  what  would  they  have 
thought  of  such  an  object  as  a  recipient  of 
their  honors ! 

However,  I  had  a  good  time  in  the  moun- 
tains, although  worried  by  the  mosquitoes  and 
broiled  in  the  sun,  between  the  showers,  to  a 
degree  that  I  have  not  experienced  for  some 
years.  I  found  both  parties  in  the  field  in  good 
condition,  and  the  work  progressing  in  all  re- 
spects satisfactorily.  The  survey  seems  to  be 
firmly  on  its  legs  now,  and  I  rather  regret  that 
I  have  promised  to  return  to  Cambridge  and 
spend  the  winter,  although  the  courses  of  lec- 
tures which  I  have  to  give  will  interest  me 
much  in  their  preparation,  if  they  do  not  my 
auditors  (provided  I  get  any)  in  the  delivery. 
I  suppose  that  I  must  go  east  about  the  mid- 
dle of  September,  and  that  by  the  ist  of  Oc- 
tober we  shall  be  settled  in  our  house.  .  .  . 

TO   MRS.   WHITNEY   AT   PROUT's    NECK,   MAINE 
SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  13,  1870. 

MY  DEAREST  PEASY  :  — 

I  do  not  "  remember  at  Northampton  "  that 

I  demurred  to  what  you  said  about .  I  do  not 

remember  that  I  demurred  to  anything,  or  had 
any  ideas  on  the  subject,  except  such  as  you 
put  in  my  head.  I  only  remember  vaguely  that 


274        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

you  said  that  they  never  would  be  engaged,  or 
ought  not  to  be,  or  something  of  the  kind,  be- 
cause she  was  taller  than  he  !  I  never  saw 

that  I  remember ;  at  least  I  should  not  know 
her  if  I  saw  her  now,  but  I  have  a  vague  idea 
that  she  is  a  nice  girl,  although  I  do  not  know 
how  I  got  the  idea,  unless  from  you.  As  to  her 
being  taller  ...  if  she  is,  I  do  not  see  that  that 
is  killing.  A  little  more,  and  you  would  be  taller 
than  I.  At  all  events,  I  wish  them  well.  .  .  . 
I  am  also  willing  to  admit,  once  for  all,  that  you 
understand  human  nature  better  than  I  do, 
although  I  consider  you  unsound  on  the  alti- 
tude question ;  and  shall  believe  that  you  half 
regret  having  married  a  short  man  who  could 
only  be  highered  up  by  having  letters  added 
to  his  name  like  slips  of  leather  on  his  boot- 
heels. 

.  .  .  The  people  have  gone  into  ecstasies  over 
Lake  Eleanor  and  the  Hetch-Hetchy ;  and  are 
building  trails  up  there,  and  say  that  the  scen- 
ery is  finer  than  that  of  the  Yosemite.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  exactly  understand  what  you  mean 
by  your  remarks  on  [Raphael]  Pumpelly's 
book  [on  his  experiences  in  China,  Japan,  and 
Arizona]  and  King's  ascent  of  Mt.  Tyndall. 
That  is  just  the  beauty  of  Pumpelly's  book, 
that  it  is  entirely  true.  When  he  came  up  from 
Arizona,  all  these  facts  that  seem  so  strange 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  275 

now  were  well  known  to  us  ;  he  knew  all  those 
people  that  were  killed,  etc.,  and  never  was 
there  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
exaggerated  —  in  fact  there  was  no  need  to  do 
so.  Everybody  who  went  to  Arizona  had  the 
same  experience.  .  .  .  Pumpelly  was  lucky,  — 
others  had  rich  experiences,  but  unfortunately 
lost  their  hair  or  got  too  many  bullet-holes,  and 
so  lost  their  chance  of  telling  their  stories.  It 
is  an  entire  misrepresentation  to  say  that  Pum- 
pelly's  book  is  not  trustworthy.  As  for  King's 
credit  for  climbing  Mt.  Tyndall,  he  deserves  all 
he  ever  got  for  it ;  but  the  credit  given  a  man 
for  first  climbing  a  mountain  is  very  different 
from  that  given  for  scientific  discovery  or  grand 
scientific  generalizations. 

The  work  in  California  is  interesting  ;  but  it 
is  difficult  and  a  great  deal  of  physical  exertion 
is  required  to  carry  it  on.  I  can  do  other  scien- 
tific work  which  will  bring  me  in  just  as  much 
scientific  reputation  as  this,  without  half  the 
wear  and  tear  which  this  survey  demands,  and 
for  which  I  am  getting  less  fitted  as  I  get  older. 
I  do  not  wish  to  settle  down  and  do  nothing 
outside  of  my  study;  but  do  desire  to  have 
less  of  outdoor  work,  especially  in  a  climate 
like  this,  which  I  see  from  its  effects  on  my 
assistants,  if  not  from  my  own  experience,  to 
be  a  very  trying  one. 


276        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  November  21,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  I  am  glad  you  like  the 
"  Birds  "  [i.  e.  the  first  of  the  two  volumes  on 
the  ornithology  of  California],  the  colored 
copies  will  be  "  illigant."  'T  is  a  pity  that  we 
could  not  have  made  our  Thanksgiving  at 
Northampton ;  for,  among  other  reasons,  I  am 
afraid  that  I  cannot  go  up  to  Christmas. 

Work  presses,  this  winter,  wusser  than  ever. 
My  lectures  commence  on  the  29th  (Nora's 
birthday).  December  i3th  I  shall  hold  forth 
at  the  Academy  on  the  Antiquity  of  Man,  being 
myself  an  ancient  (51,  day  after  to-morrow), 
Eheu !  We  are  in  a  stew  about  the  scientific 
school,  and  know  not  what  Eliot  and  the  mor- 
row have  in  store  for  us.  Meantime,  however,  I 
have  bought  a  lot  of  land,  so  as  to  have  at  least 
a  place  to  squat  on,  if  only  Sunday  afternoons 
when  the  weather  is  fine.  It  is  next  to  [Pro- 
fessor Ephraim  Whitman]  Gurney's  [near  the 
Cambridge  reservoir],  far,  far  away  from  these 
earthly  scenes,  and  we  call  the  place  "  Alturas," 
—  that  is  our  fixed  determination  and  nothing 
can  alter  us. 

The  boys  continue  to  report  interesting  dis- 
coveries and  good  work  in  California.  More 
facts  a  tappuide  F homme  fossile  keep  coming 


CALIFORNIA  SURVEY  277 

in ;  also  a  gigantic  lama  has  turned  up  among 
our  rubbish,  whose  cannon  bone  measured  19 
inches  long,  to  13  of  the  corresponding  bone 
in  the  camel!  Who'll  say  that  California  is 
not  the  land  of  giants ! 

We  had  a  great  treat  in  hearing  and  seeing 
Fechter  in  Hamlet ;  the  first  time  I  ever  saw 
a  Shakespearian  play  performed ! 

TO  WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  3,  1871. 

I  take  pleasure  in  sending  you  the  first  com- 
plete copy  of  the  "  Birds."  If  you  do  not  think 
it  handsome  please  send  it  back  !  Words  cannot 
express  how  much  labor  (and  money!)  it  has 
cost.  Some  copies  will  be  ready  next  week 
bound  in  yz  Turkey;  one  for  Dana  and  one 
for  King  (to  whom  I  am  greatly  indebted  for 
photographs,  etc.).  ...  I  am  just  through 
the  physical  geography  division  of  my  lectures 
and  begin  on  climatology  as  soon  as  I  get 
back  from  New  York.  .  .  .  Just  beginning  on 
the  little  "Yosemite  Guidebook"  — a  pocket 
edition. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  13,  1871. 

.  .  .  The  boys  are  writing  all  the  time  to  me 
urging  me  to  return  to  San  Francisco,  and  I 


2/8        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

may  have  to  go.  I  hope  not,  for  I  need  a  little 
rest  after  my  lectures  are  over,  and  have  one 
or  two  papers  to  write,  one  on  glaciers,  and 
one  on  the  cause  of  volcanic  and  earthquake 
action,  for  the  "  North  American  Review." 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  July  15,  1871. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., — You  will  perhaps  be  in- 
terested to  learn  that  this  child  got  into  Fr'isco 
safe  and  sound  on  Monday  last,  after  a  very 
pleasant  passage  right  through  from  North- 
ampton. .  .  .  The  affairs  of  the  survey  seem 
to  have  been  going  on  prosperously  during 
my  absence,  and  the  map  of  Central  California 
is  now  nearly  completed  and  looks  very  fine. 
.  .  .  All  the  assistants  will  be  in  next  week,  and 
we  shall  overhaul  the  geological  field  work  of 
the  past  year  and  see  what  remains  to  be  done 
to  enable  us  to  color  up  our  Central  map.  .  .  . 

I  got  the  "  North  American  Review"  to-day 
and  read  your  notice  of  M Ciller  and  "  liked  it 
first  rate."  Hope  you  will  be  able  to  say  as 
much  for  mine  of  King's  book  ["  U.  S.  Geolo- 
gical Explorations  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel"]. 
My  article  for  the  October  number  is  in  type. 
...  The  article  is  decidedly  heavy,  but  has 
cost  me  labor  and  has  some  points  in  it  which 
I  consider  of  importance. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  279 

Did  you  notice  in  the  "  Saturday  Review  " 
of  June  24  a  tremendous  puff  of  the  California 
Survey?  King  climbed  to  the  top  of  Mt.  Whit- 
ney, endlich,  and  will  tell  us  all  about  it  in  his 
new  book  ["  Mountaineering  in  the  Sierra  Ne- 
vada "  ]  when  it  comes  out. 

It  turned  out,  nevertheless,  that  King  had 
not  climbed  Mt.  Whitney.  He  came  in  on  the 
southeast,  from  the  Owen's  Valley  side,  climbed 
by  mistake  the  peak  now  called  Mt.  Langley, 
and  did  not  discover  that  the  real  Mt.  Whitney, 
500  feet  higher,  lay  five  miles  away  in  the 
clouds.  Mt.  Whitney  itself,  therefore,  remained 
unmeasured  and  unclimbed,  until  the  summer 
of  1873,  nine  years  after  it  had  been  named, 
when  W.  A.  Goodyear,  a  topographer  of  the 
survey,  corrected  all  errors  and  finally  identified 
the  peak  which  Brewer  and  Hoffmann  had 
seen  from  afar  and  named  in  1864. 

TO   MRS.    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  26,  1871. 

MY  DEAREST  PEASY,  — .  .  .  Next  Wednes- 
day is  the  day  fixed  for  starting,  and  I  am  glad 
of  it,  for  I  am  far  from  well,  and  hope  that  the 
journey  back  will  do  me  good.  This  climate 
does  not  seem  to  agree  with  me,  somehow.  .  . . 

In  that  long  letter  I  wrote  you,  I  gave  vent 


280        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

to  some  of  my  feelings  in  regard  to  house-build- 
ing, the  survey,  etc.  This  we  will  talk  over 
when  I  return.  .  .  . 

We  are  going  at  a  tangent  from  each  other. 
I  want  to  get  settled  down  in  a  house,  so  that 
I  may  feel  that  I  have  not  got  to  move  my  traps 
again,  and  that  I  may  have,  for  a  few  moments 
at  least,  the  feeling  of  repose ;  you  want  to  go 
and  keep  going.  I  propose  to  compromise,  and 
first  secure  a^place  of  deposit,  at  least,  of  our 
own  ;  and  then  start  out  on  a  reasonable  amount 
of  wanderings.  I  do  think,  however,  that  .  .  . 
we  shall  have  to  be  economical,  until  we  get  a 
house  built,  and  after  that  until  we  get  a  little 
saved  up  for  traveling  purposes.  The  main 
thing  is  that  we  keep  our  healths.  .  .  . 

If  I  should  feel  as  poorly  as  I  do  now,  I  should 
be  inclined  to  go  somewhere  for  a  few  months, 
and  absolutely  throw  off  all  care  and  work.  But 
I  hope  that  my  indisposition  is  only  temporary. 

TO    MRS.   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  28,  1871. 
MY  DEAREST  PEASY,  — ...  You  agree  with 
me  as  to  the  desirability  of  having  a  house,  and 
I  am  delighted  that  you  feel  so.  ...  If  it  were 
for  no  other  reason,  it  seems  to  me  that  on 
Nora's  account  we  ought  to  have  one.  And  I 
am  worrying  all  the  time  because  my  books  are 


« 


I 


H 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  281 

slowly  spoiling  at  Northampton:  while  the  idea 
of  having  to  move  at  some  time  or  other,  is  a 
perpetual  weight  on  my  mind. 

There  is  hardly  anybody  living  who  has  such 
a  strong  desire  to  quiddle  in  his  own  domicile 
as  I  have,  and  yet  for  thirty  years  I  have  been 
banged  about  from  pillar  to  post,  as  if  I  were 
lost  railway  freight.  Nobody  living  so  enjoys 
being  with  his  wife  and  family ;  and  yet  I  am 
separated  from  mine  almost  half  the  time.  I  am 
opposed  to  it ;  I  detest  it ;  I  won't  have  it  any 
more ;  I  am  going  to  stay  with  "  my  folks."  I  am 
willing  to  admit  that  I  am  not  happy  away  from 
you.  But  you  are  not  happy  without  my  repu- 
tation, and  so  I  must  work  to  keep  it  up  and 
increase  it.  ... 

I  am  in  favor  of  going  at  our  house  immedi- 
ately, and  putting  a  house  of  some  kind  up, 
even  if  it  be  only  a  small  one;  or  else  of  buying 
one  outright.  .  .  . 

There  is  an  important  matter  which  may  af- 
fect our  coming  out  here  next  winter,  and  that 
is  the  absence  of  rain.  If  it  should  not  rain  next 
winter,  it  will  be  terrible  for  the  state.  Already 
they  have  no  water  at  Oakland.  .  .  .  The  usual 
supply  has  given  out,  and  they  have  to  dig  wells 
and  get  a  kind  of  salt  water. 

I  feel  better  to-day. 

Thine  as  ever,    Jo. 


282        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

There  was  by  this  time  a  new  legislature ;  and 
a  new  Governor,  Newton  Booth,  opposed  to  the 
survey. 

TO  WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  9,  1872. 

.  .  .  Our  survey  bill  has  passed  both  Senate 
and  Assembly  by  large  majorities  (36  to  2  in 
the  Senate,  and  54  to  1 1  in  the  Assembly).  It 
is  not  thought  that  we  are  likely  to  be  vetoed. 
The  appropriation  is  $48,000  in  all,  or  $2000 
a  month  for  two  years.  If  we  find  that  the  Code 
is  all  right,  we  shall  stand  better  than  we  ever 
before  did,  since  the  question  was  put  fairly 
and  squarely  to  the  Senate,  whether  the  survey 
should  be  wound  up  in  two  years,  and  decided 
No,  by  a  vote  of  35  to  3. 

That  "  Code  business"  I  could  not  make  you 
understand  without  a  long  explanation.  Suffice 
it  to  say,  that  an  attempt  was  made  to  "  choke 
me  off  "  by  means  of  an  article  syrupticiously 
—  as  Mrs.  Partington  would  say — introduced 
into  the  new  codification  of  the  laws.  Mr. 
Tompkins  assures  me  that  he  has  blocked  that 
game ;  and  now,  if  I  can  get  through  a  bill  autho- 
rizing the  distribution  of  250  copies  of  each  vol- 
ume, I  am  all  right  in  spite  of  the  Governor's 
opposition,  which  will  not  be  able  to  do  me  any 
harm  for  the  next  two  years  certainly. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  283 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  June  7,  1872. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  — ...  I  had  a  very  pleasant 
trip,  through  Owen's  Valley,  the  scenery  of 
which  is  stupendous!  At  Aurora  my  luck  de- 
serted me  and  we  had  five  accidents  in  one 
night ;  but  by  none  of  them  was  I  killed.  The 
high  water  impeded  all  our  movements,  and 
made  it  necessary  for  me  to  change  all  my  plans, 
and  return  to  San  Francisco ;  which  was  lucky, 
since  it  turns  out  that  there  is  to  be  no  money 
in  the  treasury  this  year,  so  that  I  am  in  a 
regular  fix  with  a  bill  on  the  way  from  Bien  of 
about  $6000.  .  .  . 

I  have  decided  to  wind  up  the  survey  as  soon 
as  I  can ;  that  is,  to  close  all  the  field  work, 
spend  the  rest  of  the  money  in  publication 
work,  and  to  give  up  all  idea  of  an  indefinite 
continuance  of  the  undertaking. 

We  propose  to  travel  for  a  couple  of  years, 
and  then  to  settle  down  in  quiet,  at  Cambridge, 
or  somewhere  else. 

My  observations  on  the  Owen's  Valley  earth- 
quake, I  am  writing  out  for  publication  in  the 
August  number  of  the  "  Overland  Monthly,"  if 
they  prove  interesting  enough  to  make  a  read- 
able article.  Louisa  and  Eleanor  have  gone  to 
the  Big  Trees. 


284        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  13,  1872. 

...  I  had  a  very  flattering  letter  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society, 
saying  that  I  had  been  nominated  for  Honorary 
Membership,  and  calling  attention  to  the  huge 
puffs  of  the  survey  in  the  President's  annual 
addresses  of  this  year  and  the  last. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  28,  1872. 

.  .  .  Petermann  gives  the  survey  a  tremen- 
dous puff  in  No.  X  of  the  "  Mittheilungen"  for 
the  current  year.  In  a  lithographed  circular,  he 
informs  me  that  he  has  immortalized  the  name 
of  Whitney  by  sticking  it  into  a  cove  of  the 
island  of  Nova  Zembla.  Will  divide  with  you 
so  that  "  honors  shall  be  easy."  Only  let  me 
have  a  small  fraction  of  the  glory  painted  around 
your  head  in  the  last "  College  Courant" !  Seri- 
ously, I  am  glad  that  the  survey  is  getting  into 
notice.  It  helps  me  fight  the  Governor:  and 
it  is  a  desperate  fight  between  us. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  June  19,  1873. 
MY  DEAR  W.  D., —  C.  King  has  just  been  in 
and  says  that  he  has  completed  an  examination 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  285 

of  the  Mine  and  finds  that  there  is  about  $8000 
worth  of  ore  left  in  it.  He  made  the  examina- 
tion on  behalf  of  the  Glasgow  stockholders,  who 
hold  a  large  amount  of  the  highly  valuable  stock! 
He  confirms  my  statements,  that  the  whole 
swindle  was  engineered  by  the  same  persons 

who  put  through  the  sale :  A ,  B ,  C , 

and  D .  Comment  is  superfluous. 

I  did  not  expect,  however,  that  my  state- 
ments, made  a  year  ago,  would  be  so  fully  and 
so  rapidly  confirmed. 

The  names  in  the  following  letter  are  all 
those  of  assistants  on  the  survey. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September  25,  1873. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  —  Goodyear  writes  that 
some  men  have  climbed  Mt.  Whitney  on  the 
southwest  side,  going  first  to  the  bogus  one 
and  then  on  to  the  genuine.  Hunter,  Rabe  & 
Co.  have  not  been  heard  from,  but  the  men 
who  made  the  ascent  had  Belshaw's  aneroid 
with  them,  which  stood  1000  feet  higher  on 
the  real,  than  on  the  bogus  summit.  Belshaw's 
previous  trigonometrical  measurements  gave 
900  feet  difference.  If  King's  barometric  result 
on  the  peaks  he  ascended  be  taken  as  correct, 
and  900  feet  added,  we  have  14,612  +  900  = 


286        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

15,512!  Anyway  Mt.  Whitney  is  pretty  safe 
to  be  over  15,000. 

The  curious  point  is  that  the  southwest  is 
the  side  from  which  King  professed  to  have  at- 
tacked the  mountain,  and  up  which  he  could  not 
go  quite  to  the  summit.  The  party  which  went 
up  on  that  side,  report  the  climb  as  hard,  but 
not  dangerous.  It  is  probable  now  that  Hunter 
and  Rabe  will  get  to  the  top,  and  they  are  pro- 
vided with  good  barometers.  Goodyear  tele- 
graphed for  the  elevation  of  Lone  Pine,  and 
that  was  since  his  letter  was  written.  Hunter 
may  have  got  to  the  top;  or  Goodyear,  hearing 
that  this  other  party  had  succeeded,  may  have 
thought  it  best  to  telegraph,  so  as  to  be  in 
readiness  to  give  the  result  from  the  sea-level. 

Show  this  to  Brewer. 

So  Mt.  Whitney  was  conquered  at  last,  nine 
years  after  King's  first  attempt.  Its  height  turns 
out  to  be  considerably  less  than  the  first  mea- 
surements, and  is  14,501  feet.  Nevertheless, 
outside  Alaska,  it  is  the  loftiest  peak  in  the 
United  States. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  January  27,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  — ...  I  feel  Agassiz's  death 
very  much,  for  he  was  the  warmest  possible 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  287 

friend  to  me,  and  he  never  took  offense  at  my 
friendship  for  Desor,  nor  at  any  of  the  saucy 
things  I  said  in  my  lectures.  The  night  before 
we  left  Cambridge,  he  spent  the  evening  at  our 
house,  and  when  Nora  kissed  him  as  he  went 
away,  the  tears  came  in  his  eyes,  and  in  mine 
too,  for  I  had  little  expectation  of  ever  seeing 
him  again.  He  looked  like  a  doomed  man. 

Poor  Mrs. too ;  she  was  one  of  the  two 

R girls  of  whom  Theodore  Parker  was  so 

fond,  and  whom  he  called  his  little  "  bits  of 
buds  and  mites  of  blossoms,"  when  they  lived 
together  in  West  Roxbury. 

Another  legislature  was  now  in  session ;  and 
the  new  president  of  the  State  University,  Dan- 
iel Coit  Gilman,  later  of  Johns  Hopkins,  made 
common  cause  with  Whitney  against  a  com- 
mon foe. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  February  16,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, —  .  .  .  The  survey  looks 
very  bad.  I  have  hardly  a  shadow  of  hope  that 
anything  will  be  done  for  good ;  and  much  fear 
that  some  preposterous  legislation  may  be 
brought  about.  The  legislature  is  terrible, 
and  they  are  "  raising  Cain"  with  the  railroads, 
the  University,  and  everything  else.  Gilman  is 


288        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

very  much  annoyed :  but  ...  he  has  a  certain 
pride  about  going  away  from  here,  and  perhaps 
a  faint  hope  that  he  may  worry  the  thing 
through.  He  has  n't  had  thirteen  years  of  worry 
as  I  have !  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  3,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  WILL, —  .  .  .  Oilman  is  engaged 
in  a  hard  fight  to  save  the  University  from  the 
claws  of  the  grangers  who  want  to  make  a 
manual-labor  school  of  it.  Oilman  feels  very 
much  discouraged,  especially  as  he  now  real- 
izes fully  that  a  state  institution  must  always 
be  in  hot  water.  For  each  legislature  can  undo 
the  work  of  its  predecessors,  and  they  have  full 
power  to  pull  down  and  alter  as  they  please. 
Already,  by  the  New  Code,  all  the  Regents 
are  appointed  by  the  Governor,  and  by  the  con- 
stitution of  the  state,  can  hold  office  only  for  four 
years,  so  that  politics  and  change  must  ever  be 
the  predominating  elements  in  the  concern. 

The  survey  I  look  upon  as  defunct.  The 
Governor  [Booth]  is  u  too  many  "  for  me.  With 
state  and  federal  patronage  together,  he  con- 
trols the  legislature  easily.  The  feeling  in  gen- 
eral about  the  survey  is  good,  but  even  my 
best  friends  are  paralyzed  by  the  Governor. 
It  is  much  less  of  a  trial  to  me  to  leave  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  289 

survey  than  it  would  be  if  I  did  not  know  that 
there  will  be  no  more  money  in  the  treasury 
this  year  any  way.  I  have  offered  to  finish  up 
a  large  amount  of  work  with  $60,000,  having 
formally  withdrawn  my  first  offer  to  finish  all 
for  $100,000.  The  Committee  are  warmly  in 
favor  of  accepting  my  proposition;  but  the 
Governor  evidently  holds  them  in  check,  and 
they  hesitate  to  report,  —  waiting  to  see  what 
will  turn  up,  I  suppose. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  March  19, 1874. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  The  survey  has  succumbed 
to  the  stupidity  and  malignity  of  the  legisla- 
ture, backed  by  the  same  characteristics  on  the 
part  of  the  Governor.  The  Committee  reported 
in  favor  of  continuing  the  work,  putting  it 
under  the  supervision  of  a  "  Board  of  Survey," 
as  you  may  see  from  a  copy  of  the  bill  proposed. 
I  would  not  have  acted  under  this  had  it  passed, 
and  had  the  place  been  offered  to  me;  but  the 
discussion  turned  entirely  on  me  and  my  work, 
without  any  hint  of  the  possibility  of  the  em- 
ployment of  any  one  else.  I  was  accused  of 
having  given  all  the  collections  to  Harvard ; 
and  it  was  stated  over  and  over  again,  that  the 
survey  had  been  run  by  me  for  the  benefit  of 
Harvard  University !  The  question  now  arises, 


290        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

what  will  be  done  with  the  materials  ?  Possi- 
bly some  bill  will  yet  be  got  through  taking 
them  out  of  my  hands  entirely.  I  shall  have 
to  wait  until  the  end  of  the  session  to  ascer- 
tain what  position  I  am  in.  At  all  events  I  am 
pretty  nearly  square  ^vvith  the  state  in  my  ex- 
penditures, so  that  my  position  is  one  of  com- 
parative financial  ease ;  and,  of  course,  I  shall 
not,  under  any  circumstances,  involve  myself 
as  I  did  before,  when  the  work  was  left  in  my 
hands,  Haight  being  Governor,  and  giving  me 
the  weight  of  his  authority  so  far  as  it  went. 
Still  I  never  should  have  got  back  a  cent  of 
that  money,  had  it  not  been  for  Mr.  Tompkins. 
And  he  is  dead,  and  has  left  no  successor.  .  .  . 
We  propose  to  go  to  Europe  in  May  or  June, 
if  nothing  unexpected  happens.  How  long  we 
shall  remain,  I  do  not  know ;  but  the  idea  is  to 
go  on  quite  a  tour,  perhaps  to  India,  or  Aus- 
tralia, or  both,  and  possibly  back  this  way. 
Much  depends  on  Louisa's  health  and  how  she 
stands  the  journey.  My  own  feelings  are  de- 
cidedly those  of  relief  at  getting  the  survey  off 
my  hands,  with  no  fault  or  laches  of  my  own, 
for  it  is  hard  work  making  a  creditable  thing 
of  it  on  a  small  amount  of  money.  I  have 
always  got  more  curses  than  coppers  out  of  it. 

Yours  ever, 

Jo. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  SURVEY 

WHITNEY  himself  attributed  the  discontinuance 
of  his  survey  to  four  causes :  the  general  ig- 
norance and  indifference  of  the  public  con- 
cerning all  scientific  matters ;  the  intrigues  of 
various  persons  who  foresaw  advantage  for 
themselves  if  the  survey  should  be  reorganized 
under  another  head  ;  the  hostility  of  a  powerful 
group  of  speculators ;  and  finally,  rather  perhaps 
an  occasion  than  a  cause,  the  personal  enmity 
of  Governor  Booth. 

The  ignorance  of  the  public  was  inevitable 
under  the  circumstances.  There  have  been 
times  when  America  has  led  the  world  in  con- 
tempt for  pure  science,  and  California  in  the 
sixties  and  seventies  by  no  means  lagged  be- 
hind her  sister  commonwealths.  The  survey 
had  been  from  the  first  the  project  of  a  small 
group  of  enlightened  persons,  not  the  response 
to  any  popular  demand.  Moreover,  the  great 
mass  of  voters  and  legislators,  when  they  ac- 
quiesced in  the  scheme  for  a  geological  survey, 
supposed  that  they  were  to  get  something 
after  the  fashion  of  the  California  State  Min- 
ing Bureau,  which  was  established  later,  in 


292        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

1 880.  The  survey,  therefore,  was  in  part  stopped 
by  men  who,  had  they  known  what  they  were 
doing,  would  never  have  consented  to  let  it 
start.  Possibly,  if  Whitney  had  been  a  great 
teacher  like  Agassiz,  he  might  have  educated 
his  public  and  kept  his  survey  alive ;  but  he 
could  hardly  have  done  it  without  sacrificing 
some  other  side  of  his  work,  and  perhaps  in 
the  end  would  have  lost  more  than  he  gained. 
Something  of  this,  indeed,  Whitney  did  attempt 
in  his  addresses  to  the  legislature,  and  in  print. 
Direct  personal  influence  on  individuals  he 
left  largely  to  his  subordinates.  For  Whitney 
was  never  the  man  to  employ  language  to 
conceal  thought,  while  so  far  from  suffering 
fools  gladly,  it  was  with  some  obvious  effort 
that  he  suffered  fools  at  all. 

As  for  his  relations  with  the  Governor,  the 
two  men  were  predestined  to  dislike  one  an- 
other. Whitney  complained  of  the  Governor's 
"  malignant  hostility  "  ;  Booth  in  turn  declared 
that  by  no  other  man  had  he  ever  been  so  in- 
sulted in  all  his  life  —  as  one  may  easily  believe 
if  Whitney's  words  in  California  matched  his 
letters  east.  Nevertheless,  Booth  was  a  politi- 
cian, who  aspired  to  further  honors,  and  indeed, 
a  year  after  the  close  of  the  survey,  resigned 
his  office  to  become  United  States  Senator. 
He  would  hardly  have  risked  a  trial  of  strength 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  293 

if  he  had  not  been  pretty  sure  in  advance  that 
he  had  the  public  on  his  side. 

No  small  part  of  this  general  hostility 
Whitney  believed  to  be  purely  factitious,  the 
work  of  a  few  speculators,  who,  when  they 
found  in  the  survey  an  obstacle  to  their 
schemes,  found  also  in  the  less  scrupulous  of 
the  Californian  newspapers  a  ready  tool  to 
employ  against  it.  The  survey  did  not  trespass 
on  the  field  of  the  mining  engineer,  but  the 
first  report  of  1864  set  forth  with  a  good  deal 
of  detail  both  the  regions  within  which  metals 
and  oil  might  be  expected  to  occur,  and  the 
facts  with  regard  to  their  actual  presence. 
Moreover,  it  was  Whitney's  policy  from  the 
beginning,  to  put  all  data  in  possession  of  the 
survey  at  the  command  of  any  citizen  who 
cared  to  apply,  to  answer  in  person  or  by  letter 
all  requests  for  information,  and  to  have  his 
assistants  give  without  fee  any  special  aid 
which  did  not  interfere  with  their  more  im- 
mediate duties.  Under  these  circumstances, 
the  opportunity  for  fraudulent  dealing  became 
inconveniently  restricted. 

The  attempt  was  made  during  the  later  years 
of  the  survey,  and  has  been  made  since,  to  dis- 
credit Whitney's  judgment  on  the  ground  that 
he  denied  the  occurrence  of  petroleum  in  Cali- 
fornia, though  California  has  of  late  years 


294        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

t-'iYS-S,  {>>t*^  ~  OK) 

become  the  -fett-Ftti  oil-producing  state  in  the 
Union.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Whitney  did  no- 
thing of  the  kind,  as  one  may  easily  discover 
by  consulting  the  report  of  1864.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  investigated  every  reported  discovery 
of  oil  lands.  In  several  instances  he  employed 
special  experts  in  addition  to  his  regular  staff, 
and  he  advised  the  legislature  to  spend  a  reason- 
able sum  in  experimenting  with  the  commercial 
possibilities  of  California  oil.  What  he  did  do 
was  to  point  out  that  the  actual  state  of  affairs 
on  the  property  of  certain  companies  did  not 
at  all  bear  out  the  statements  of  their  prospec- 
tuses; that  the  geological  conditions  in  Califor- 
nia are  essentially  different  from  those  in  Penn- 
sylvania; and  that  the  eastern  chemists  to  whom 
he  had  referred  the  problem,  reported  that  in 
the  existing  state  of  chemical  science  the  Cali- 
fornia oil  could  not  be  made  to  yield  an  illumi- 
nant  on  a  commercial  basis.  Moreover,  there 
is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  Whitney  was  right 
when  he  averred  that  certain  auspicious  re- 
ports of  other  eastern  chemists  had  been  ob- 
tained by  the  simple  device  of  sending  them 
specimens  of  Pennsylvania  oil. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  the  early 
days  of  petroleum,  the  valuable  constituent  was 
the  kerosene;  for  by  the  middle  fifties  the  sup- 
ply of  whale  oil  had  practically  come  to  an  end, 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  295 

and  the  public,  in  the  absence  of  gas,  had  to 
choose  between  candles  and  "camphene."  The 
wisest  of  state  geologists  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  anticipate  asphalt  paving,  the  oiling 
of  roadbeds,  and  the  gasolene  engine;  or  to 
forecast  battleships  driven  by  crude  oil,  in  a  day 
when  locomotives  were  burning  wood.  The  es- 
sential point  of  Whitney's  contention  was  that 
Californian  kerosene  would  not  compete  with 
Pennsylvanian  —  and  it  never  has.  As  late  as 
1904,  when  California  was  producing  more  than 
fifteen  million  barrels  of  crude  oil,  it  was  not 
even  supplying  its  own  market  for  kerosene,  for 
an  oil  that  will  burn  under  a  boiler  is  not  neces- 
sarily an  oil  that  will  burn  in  a  lamp.  It  may 
be  that  Whitney  reiterated  various  unpalatable 
truths  with  unnecessary  emphasis.  Neverthe- 
less, the  companies  whose  claims  he  contro- 
verted did  fail;  it  was  not  until  after  1892  that 
the  oil  industry  of  Ventura  County  began  to 
attain  to  anything  beyond  local  importance; 
and  the  petroleum  of  California,  so  far  from 
flowing  on  the  surface  in  rivers,  has  come  from 
deep  wells  driven  under  peculiar  difficulties. 
Such  are  the  facts ;  facts  which  it  has  been  easy 
for  interested  persons  to  distort  beyond  recog- 
nition. 

It  will  probably  strike  most  people  that  when 
the  State  Geologist,  in  a  period  of  unbridled 


296        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

speculation,  advised  caution  and  a  due  consid- 
eration of  practical  difficulties,  he  did  no  more 
than  his  duty.  The  way  it  struck  his  fellow- 
citizens  in  California  may  be  guessed  from  the 
fact  that,  when  one  of  the  San  Francisco  news- 
papers exposed  a  piece  of  unalloyed  rascality 
on  the  part  of  a  group  of  promoters,  the  out- 
raged public  arose  in  its  indignation  —  and 
wrecked  the  newspaper.  In  a  very  real  sense, 
therefore,  Whitney  sacrificed  the  survey  to  a 
standard  of  conduct  that  had  gone  somewhat 
out  of  fashion  in  the  years  which  followed  the 
War. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  period  of 
Whitney's  work  in  California  was  also  the  pe- 
riod of  the  Credit  Mobilier  and  the  Tweed 
Ring,  a  period  when  college  presidents  and 
clergymen  lent  their  names  to  unsound  busi- 
ness enterprises,  and  the  religious  press,  with 
all  its  differences  in  matters  of  doctrine,  was  a 
unit  in  accepting  any  advertisement  that  offered 
itself.  In  a  man  like  Whitney,  sprung  from  a 
race  of  honest  merchants,  such  a  condition  of 
affairs  aroused  a  burning  indignation  that  was 
no  respecter  of  persons.  He  himself,  during 
thirty  years'  connection  with  mining  surveys, 
never  owned  a  single  dollar's  worth  of  mining 
property ;  he  wrote  "  The  Metallic  Wealth  of 
the  United  States,"  in  no  small  part,  for  the  sake 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  297 

of  protecting  the  inexpert  investor;  and  shortly 
after  he  left  California,  he  and  his  brother 
William  withdrew  from  the  National  Acad- 
emy of  Science  because  it  would  not  main- 
tain what  they  regarded  as  a  proper  standard 
of  professional  honor  among  its  members. 
These  things  he  did  at  a  period  when  his  scru- 
ples were  looked  upon  less  as  counsels  of  per- 
fection than  as  signs  of  mental  aberration. 
Whitney  has  been  called  "  an  easy  man  to  quar- 
rel with  " :  his  bitterest  quarrel  had  at  least  the 
justification  of  a  good  cause ;  and  he  did  his 
part  toward  bringing  about  the  era  of  compara- 
tive decency  which  followed  Grant's  second 
term. 

Worth  quoting  here,  as  comment  on  this  as- 
pect of  the  situation,  is  a  letter  which  Agassiz 
wrote  to  an  influential  Californian,  during 
Whitney's  controversy  with  the  oil  specu- 
lators. 

LOUIS    AGASSIZ   TO    G.    B.    BLAKE 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  6,  1866. 

DEAR  SIR, —  In  answer  to  your  question  con- 
cerning Professor  Whitney,  I  would  say  that 
my  personal  knowledge  of  Mr.  Whitney's  scien- 
tific attainments  goes  back  for  nearly  20  years. 
When  the  Geological  Survey  of  California  was 
organized,  I  proposed  him  for  that  position, 


298        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

because  I  was  satisfied  that  he  was  the  ablest 
man  in  the  country  to  fill  it,  and,  of  all  the  geo- 
logists I  knew,  one  of  the  few  who  would  not 
speculate  upon  his  scientific  information,  but 
honorably  report  what  he  knew  to  be  true.  I 
have  never  had  occasion  to  change  my  opinion 
upon  those  two  points,  which  cover  your  whole 
inquiry.  Allow  me  to  add  that  the  published 
reports  relating  to  the  Geology  of  California 
emanating  from  his  pen,  have  only  increased 
his  scientific  standing,  and  his  opposition  to 
mining  schemes  intended  as  speculations  shows 
that  his  character  has  not  been  lowered  by  the 
great  temptations  which  have  surrounded  him 
for  years. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

L.  AGASSIZ. 

These  then  are  the  chief  causes  for  the  failure 
of  the  California  Survey.  There  remain  in  ad- 
dition certain  minor  elements  which,  though 
no  one  was  in  itself  especially  important,  prob- 
ably had  altogether  a  good  deal  of  weight. 
For  one  thing,  it  was  unfortunate  that  the  State 
Geologist  thought  himself  compelled  to  spend 
so  much  of  his  time  at  the  East.  Good  friends 
of  the  survey  felt  that  even  if  the  printing 
could  not  be  done  in  California,  Whitney  might 
have  imported  engravers,  remained  on  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  299 

ground,  and  handled  his  reports  instead  of  his 
field  work  at  arm's  length.  Moreover,  there  was 
a  persistent  rumor  that  the  collections  of  the 
survey  were  being  given  to  Harvard  College ; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  Whitney  never  quite 
succeeded  in  making  the  public  understand 
that  although  he  had  been  in  the  employ  both  of 
Harvard  and  California,  he  had  never  taken  pay 
from  both  at  the  same  time.  Doubtless,  too,  a 
change  in  the  order  of  publication,  to  put  the 
economic  volume  early  and  the  two  on  paleon- 
tology later,  would  have  helped.  Oddly  enough, 
the  appearance  of  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  in 
1859  hurt  the  survey.  To  the  general  position 
of  Darwin,  Whitney  was  an  early  convert,  but 
his  thoroughly  scientific  habit  of  mind  as  little 
inclined  him  to  follow  Haeckel  on  the  one  hand 
as  Agassiz  on  the  other.  Like  his  old  master 
Lyell,  he  believed  that  the  first  task  was  to  help 
the  new  doctrine  to  a  hearing  on  its  merits. 
For  this  reason,  in  his  address  to  the  legisla- 
ture early  in  -1862,  he  went  somewhat  out  of 
his  way  to  set  forth  the  ideas  of  the  "  Origin." 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  moderate  in 
tone.  Whitney  dwelt  upon  Darwin's  high  re- 
pute in  the  scientific  world,  assumed  that  the 
matter  was  one  in  which  an  intelligent  legisla- 
ture would  naturally  take  an  interest,  but  com- 
mitted himself  only  to  the  opinion  that  "  the 


300        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

discussion  of  this  interesting  subject  .  .  .  will 
be  of  essential  service  to  the  progress  of 
science." 

Whitney  promptly  discovered  that  this  by 
no  means  radical  conviction  was  very  far  from 
being  shared  by  the  California  clergy.  The 
life  of  the  survey  coincided  almost  precisely 
with  the  controversy  over  Evolution,  a  contro- 
versy whose  bitterness  we  of  these  easy-going 
days  find  it  hard  to  realize.  Inevitably,  there- 
fore, the  church-going  portion  of  the  commu- 
nity became  still  farther  exacerbated  against  the 
survey,  when  after  the  discovery  of  the  Calave- 
ras  skull  in  1866,  Whitney  became  the  foremost 
American  advocate  of  Tertiary  man. 

Evidently,  then,  the  termination  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Survey  was  due  less  to  any  single  cause 
than  to  a  variety  of  independent  factors  which 
varied  in  importance  from  the  floods  of  1862  to 
the  persistent  refusal  of  the  State  Geologist,  in 
a  community  essentially  Southern  in  customs, 
to  drink  whiskey  in  a  saloon  between  meals.  Yet 
although  the  scientific  world  is  in  general  agreed 
that  the  last  State  Geologist  of  California  was 
hardly  used,  there  remains,  nevertheless,  not  a 
little  that  can  be  justly  urged  from  the  side  of 
legislature,  Governor,  and  public.  The  survey 
cost,  all  told,  a  little  less  than  $350,000;  and 
$25,000  a  year  seems  a  small  sum  compared 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  301 

with  Hayden's  $95,000  for  the  Survey  of  the 
Territories,  or  the  $200,000  and  more  of  the 
United  States  Coast  Survey.  Still,  Hayden  in 
1867  and  1868  laid  the  foundations  of  his  sur- 
vey on  $5000  a  year,  and  carried  through  his 
reconnoissance  of  the  Upper  Missouri,  depend- 
ent for  sustenance  on  the  hospitality  of  ac- 
quaintances and  on  what  he  could  earn  by  the 
way.  California,  in  1860  when  the  survey  be- 
gan, looked  to  a  future  of  unlimited  growth 
and  prosperity,  and  cut  its  coat  according  to 
the  cloth  it  expected  to  own.  Its  actual  lot  was 
flood  and  drought,  the  competition  of  other 
gold  fields,  and  the  Civil  War.  Under  these 
changed  conditions,  there  were  many  well-in- 
tentioned persons  who  felt  that  elaborate,  hand- 
colored  monographs  on  birds  and  land  shells 
were  not  the  things  which  the  young  state 
needed  most.  As  it  turned  out,  the  California 
Survey,  on  the  scale  on  which  Whitney  planned 
it,  was  distinctly  premature. 

How  large  this  scale  was,  one  appreciates 
only  by  comparing  the  California  Survey  with 
the  other  state  surveys  which  went  before  it. 
If  Whitney  could  have  carried  his  work  through 
to  the  end  which  it  nearly  reached,  it  would 
have  cost  in  all  some  $450,000  and  taken  fif- 
teen years.  Jackson's  survey  of  New  Hampshire, 
which  gave  Whitney  his  first  training  as  a  geo- 


302        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

logical  surveyor,  required  three  years  and  cost 
each  year  $3000.  The  Lake  Superior  Survey 
lasted  four  years.  The  original  surveys  of  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania,  which  between  them 
made  the  reputations  of  a  half-dozen  geologists, 
each  consumed  a  half  decade.  Even  as  late  as 
1 866,  Swallow's  survey  of  Kansas  occupied  only 
a  year  and  a  half ;  while  at  about  the  same  time 
the  legislature  of  Nevada  tried,  vainly  to  be 
sure,  to  find  a  reputable  geologist  who  would 
undertake  the  survey  of  the  state  at  a  total  cost 
of  $6000,  and  finish  his  task  in  eight  months. 
By  however  much,  therefore,  California  fell 
short  of  her  State  Geologist's  ideals,  she  sur- 
passed in  at  least  an  equal  measure  anything 
that  her  sister  states  had  done. 

Yet  granting  that  the  survey  was  more  than 
the  state  could  reasonably  afford,  Governor 
Booth  chose  an  especially  unfortunate  time  for 
bringing  it  to  a  close.  Another  year  and  a  half 
would  have  carried  the  work  to  a  convenient 
stopping  place;  and  in  fact,  Whitney  had  de- 
cided finally  that  if  the  survey  went  on  after 
June  of  1875,  it  should  be  in  other  hands  than 
his.  But  when  he  was  "  thus  unceremoniously 
ejected  from  the  State  of  California,  with  no 
other  right  or  privilege  left  than  that  of  paying 
the  debts  of  the  survey  out  of  his  own  pocket," 
he  not  only  had  to  leave  matters  hanging  in  the 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  303 

air,  but,  in  addition,  to  sacrifice  a  considerable 
amount  of  important  material  that  was  nearly 
ready  for  publication. 

All  this  material,  by  act  of  the  legislature, 
passed  into  the  control  of  the  Regents  of  the 
State  University,  a  body,  as  a  whole,  thor- 
oughly hostile  to  the  State  Geologist  and  the 
survey.  The  Regents,  however,  could  make  no 
use  of  it,  and  Whitney  had  a  stanch  friend  at 
court  in  the  Secretary  of  the  Board,  Dr.  Rob- 
ert E.  C.  Stearns.  In  time,  therefore,  and  in 
one  way  and  another,  much  of  this  data  came 
back  into  Whitney's  control. 

A  private  subscription  of  $5000,  engineered 
by  Judge  S.  C.  Hastings  of  San  Francisco  and 
helped  on  by  Gilman,  Leland  Stanford,  and  D. 
O.  Mills,  enabled  Brewer,  with  Whitney's  help, 
to  bring  out  his  Botany,  though  at  a  cost  to 
himself  of  two  years'  unpaid  labor,  $2000  out 
of  his  pocket,  and  the  accompanying  loss  of  his 
salary  at  Yale.  There  were  printed  also  three 
volumes  on  birds,  largely  at  the  expense  of 
Alexander  Agassiz.  In  both  cases,  the  dozen 
or  more  specialists  who  had  a  hand  in  the 
books,  did  their  parts  at  considerable  sacrifice, 
Baird,  for  example,  advancing  a  thousand  dol- 
lars on  his  portion  of  the  "  Birds."  The  geo- 
logical material  was  absorbed  by  various  scien- 
tific journals,  especially  by  the  publications  of 


304        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  at  Cam- 
bridge. So  far  as  anything  that  the  State  of 
California  did,  at  least  half  of  the  labor  of  the 
survey  would  have  gone  for  nothing. 

Fortunately,  the  more  important  topograph- 
ical maps  were  nearly  all  ready  for  printing  be- 
fore the  end  of  1873;  and  since  these  met  with 
a  ready  sale,  they  practically  took  care  of  them- 
selves. There  was  still  wanting,  however,  a  few 
months  of  field  work  to  complete  one  of  the 
four  sheets  of  the  large  scale  map  of  Central 
California;  and  only  three  of  the  sheets  ever 
appeared.  Two  more  sheets  also  of  this  map 
were  under  way,  and  the  six  together  would 
have  included  all  the  inhabited  portions  of  the 
state.  These  were  a  total  loss. 

The  geological  maps,  less  advanced  than 
the  topographical,  were  still  less  fortunate. 
The  "  Bay  Map,"  which  borrowed  its  triangu- 
lation  from  the  charts  of  the  Coast  Survey,  was 
farthest  along  and  was  preserved.  The  rest  of 
the  geological  maps,  the  printing  of  some  of 
the  sheets  actually  begun,  waited  vainly  year 
after  year,  and  were  then,  to  quote  their 
author,  "  ground  off  the  stones  together  with 
$5000  of  my  money." 

All  this  was  most  unfortunate  for  the  repu- 
tation of  the  California  Survey.  Any  such 
piece  of  scientific  work  is  likely,  in  the  long 


CALIFORNIA    SURVEY  305 

run,  to  be  judged  by  its  printed  documents. 
A  shelf  full  of  well-printed  reports,  appearing 
promptly  on  the  completion  of  the  work,  makes 
far  more  impression  on  the  scientific  world 
than  does  the  same  material,  however  valuable, 
when  strung  along  over  a  decade  and  scattered 
through  the  publications  of  half  a  dozen  learned 
societies  and  as  many  popular  magazines.  The 
investigator,  intent  on  a  single  aspect  of  a 
multifarious  work,  needs  continually  to  be  re- 
minded of  the  portions  which  he  does  not  use. 
The  California  Survey,  moreover,  coming  as 
it  does  between  the  era  of  the  state  surveys  and 
the  beginnings  of  the  United  States  Geologi- 
cal Survey,  has  been  in  a  sense  devoured  by 
its  own  offspring.  It  inspired,  to  a  degree  which 
has  seldom  been  adequately  recognized,  the  most 
important  piece  of  scientific  work  that  has  been 
done  in  America,  and  the  best  piece  of  geolo- 
gical surveying  that  has  been  done  anywhere. 
The  traditions  of  the  Government  surveys  go 
back  only  to  Clarence  King,  Hayden,  Gardner, 
Wilson,  Emmons,  and  Gannett.  Back  of  them, 
however,  stands  the  half-forgotten  California 
Survey  which  first  worked  out  the  problem  of 
handling  great  stretches  of  wild  country,  and 
trained  up  a  group  of  geologists  and  topogra- 
phers, without  whom  the  United  States  surveys 
could  hardly  have  been  what  they  were.  Fur- 


306        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

thermore,  one  of  the  early  tasks  of  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  was  to  continue 
Whitney's  unfinished  work.  Inevitably,  to  the 
builder  of  the  superstructures  is  attributed  the 
foundation  also. 

That  the  Government  surveyors  themselves 
recognized  their  debt,  appears  in  a  letter  which 
Gardner,  then  Chief  Topographer  of  the  Sur- 
vey of  the  Fortieth  Parallel,  wrote  to  Whitney 
from  Washington  in  May  of  1874,  just  after 
the  close  of  the  California  Survey. 

"  You  must  know  without  my  saying  it  how 
much  I  regret  the  action  of  the  California  legis- 
lature. I  think  it  one  of  the  severest  blows  that 
science  has  received  in  this  country.  We  shall 
feel  it  very  much  in  our  own  work,  as  there  is 
so  much  that  you  were  about  to  publish  which 
would  throw  light  on  our  problems.  Few  will 
feel  it  as  we  who  are  laboring  in  adjoining 
parts  of  the  Cordillera  system. 

"The  thought  that  the  seeds  which  you 
planted  in  us  young  men  are  bearing  fruit 
while  you  are  cut  off  from  your  harvest,  is  very 
painful  to  me.  For  I  feel  that  to  your  illuminat- 
ing and  fostering  influence  is  due  the  starting 
of  improved  topographical  work  in  this  country. 
I  acknowledge  with  pleasure  and  gratitude 
that  I  received  from  you  first  those  ideas  of 
what  topography  might  acomplish  for  geology 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  307 

which  I  have  ever  since  been  endeavoring  to 
systematize,  develop,  and  put  into  practical 
execution  over  large  areas. 

"  I  wish  you  would  come  on  and  visit  me, 
and  see  the  last  fruit  that  your  little  plant  has 
borne.  It  is  the  best  thing  that  I  have  done 
yet.  .  .  .  We  have  lots  of  plunder  here  in  the 
way  of  photographs  and  publications,  and  you 
better  load  up  before  going  to  Europe.  But 
better  than  all  plunder  will  it  be  for  your 
fatherly  eyes  to  see  the  licking  that  we  are 
going  to  give  those  arrogant  and  grasping 
[army]  engineers." 

The  significance  of  this  letter  of  Gardner's 
becomes  more  clear  if  we  review  briefly  certain 
points  in  the  history  of  modern  cartography. 

When  Whitney  commenced  work  in  Cali- 
fornia, three  government  boards  at  Washing- 
ton were  issuing  three  different  kinds  of  maps. 
These  were  the  charts  of  the  United  States 
Coast  Survey,  the  areal  maps  of  the  General 
Land  Office  for  the  distribution  of  the  public 
lands,  and  the  maps  based  on  the  linear  sur- 
veys of  various  government  exploring  expedi- 
tions. The  Coast  Survey  maps  were  made  by 
elaborate  triangulation,  which  sometimes  in- 
volved a  whole  season's  work  at  a  single  station; 
they  were  accurate  to  a  few  inches  in  a  hundred 
miles — and  were  correspondingly  expensive. 


308        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

The  public  lands  were  mapped  by  an  ordinary 
chain  and  compass  survey,  at  the  hands  of  all 
sorts  of  unskilled  and  casual  surveyors.  They 
answered  their  purpose  adequately  enough, 
so  long  as  transfers  of  property  were  based 
upon  the  boundary  stone  and  other  actual 
monuments  of  the  first  survey,  and  no  attempt 
was  made  to  repeat  any  determination.  This 
method  has  the  merit  of  cheapness ;  its  obvious 
limitations  are  that  it  takes  no  account  of  to- 
pography, and  that  it  is  impossible  except  in  a 
flat  country.  The  linear  surveys  of  the  army 
were  worst  of  all.  These  started  from  a  base 
more  or  less  accurately  located,  twisted  and 
turned  with  the  progress  of  the  expedition,  and 
the  farther  they  progressed,  the  more  confused 
they  became.  Whitney,  in  California,  found 
these  army  maps  absolutely  unusable.  Obser- 
vations of  longitude  were  not  uncommonly  two 
miles  out  of  the  way ;  even  mountain  ridges 
could  not  be  identified,  because  the  error  in 
locating  any  one  was  greater  than  the  distance 
to  the  next.  It  was  accounted  a  great  victory 
for  science  when  in  1874  the  civilian  geogra- 
phers at  last  succeeded  in  getting  the  Govern- 
ment map-making  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
army  ;  a  victory,  moreover,  in  which  the  former 
Californians  did  most  of  the  fighting  and  Whit- 
ney himself  had  no  small  part. 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  309 

Obviously,  California  could  never  afford 
maps  triangulated  on  signal  stations  after  the 
manner  of  the  Coast  Survey.  Neither,  on  the 
other  hand,  could  a  country,  so  largely  moun- 
tainous, be  mapped  by  the  ordinary  methods 
of  a  land  survey.  And  yet  it  was  Whitney's 
doctrine,  an  idea  which  he  as  much  as  any  one 
man  brought  into  universal  practice  in  this 
country,  that  there  can  be  no  proper  geological 
work  that  is  not  based  on  accurate  topography. 
In  this  dilemma,  Whitney  fell  back  on  a  method 
with  which  he  had  experimented  somewhat  in 
his  Lake  Superior  days.  He  used  no  special 
signal  stations ;  but  with  an  ordinary  surveyor's 
transit  he  triangulated  on  the  sharp  mountain 
peaks.  Then,  from  convenient  elevations,  he 
mapped  in  the  intervening  country  by  the  eye. 

The  device  sounds  crude  enough.  It  has 
turned  out  in  practice  to  be  so  much  more  pre- 
cise than  any  other  method  which  can  be  ap- 
plied at  anything  like  the  cost,  that  for  ordinary 
topographical  work  over  considerable  areas,  it 
has  now  superseded  all  other  systems  through- 
out the  civilized  world.  It  is  several  times  more 
rapid  than  a  less  accurate  survey  with  chain, 
staff,  and  level.  For  small  scale  maps  it  is  a 
hundred  times  less  expensive  than  a  geodetic 
survey  that  is  often  practically  no  better. 

This  general  plan,  then,  was  Whitney's.  He 


310        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

was  lucky  enough  to  find  in  Hoffmann  a  thor- 
oughly trained  draughtsman  and  surveyor,  ca- 
pable of  working  out  its  practical  details.  The 
map  which  accompanied  the  "  Yosemite  Guide- 
book" was  the  first  triangulated  map,  and  there- 
fore the  first  decently  accurate  topographical 
map  of  a  rough  country  ever  printed  in  the 
Western  Hemisphere. 

Hoffmann,  after  1864,  taught  the  new 
method  to  the  topographers  of  the  California 
Survey.  When  King  took  charge  of  the  Forti- 
eth Parallel  Survey,  in  1867,  he  made  Gardner 
his  chief  topographer,  and  took  also  from  the 
California  Survey  Wilson  and  Emmons. 

In  the  meantime,  Hayden,  on  the  United 
States  Survey  of  the  Territories,  was  doing  no 
topographical  work  at  all.  To  the  remonstrance 
of  Whitney,  who  met  him  in  1869,  he  replied 
that  he  simply  could  not  find  men  to  do  the 
work.  As  soon,  however,  as  King's  survey  came 
to  an  end,  Hayden  took  on  Gardner  and  Wil- 
son, and  thereafter  mapped  after  Whitney's 
method.  Powell  did  little  topographical  map- 
ping on  his  earliest  surveys.  Lieutenant 
Wheeler  clung  to  the  obsolete  methods  of  the 
army. 

King  became  the  first  head  of  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  in  1879,  and  at  once 
absorbed  all  the  available  topographers  of  Hay- 


CALIFORNIA   SURVEY  311 

den's  and  Whitney's  surveys,  and  the  men  whom 
they  had  trained  in  their  turn.  Of  these,  Em- 
mons  has  been  connected  with  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  ever  since;  and  Gan- 
nett, who,  before  he  went  on  Hayden's  survey, 
was  one  of  the  four  students  from  the  Harvard 
Mining  School  whom  Hoffmann  taught  sur- 
veying in  the  Colorado  mountains,  has  had  his 
name  on  the  border  of  some  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  sheets  of  the  great  topographical  map 
of  the  United  States  which  has  been  under  way 
for  a  generation  and  is  not  yet  half  done. 

Since  Whitney's  time  the  plane  table  has 
come  into  more  general  use,  so  that  the  topo- 
grapher depends  less  on  his  "eye  for  country  " 
than  he  once  did.  The  United  States  Geologi- 
cal Survey,  having  more  money  to  spend  than 
the  California  Survey  ever  dreamed  of,  can 
afford  to  employ  in  its  primary  triangulation 
some  of  the  expensive  devices  of  the  Coast  Sur- 
vey; moreover,  it  has  educated  the  public  to  the 
familiar  atlas  sheet  and,  to  some  extent,  to  the 
contour  line  in  place  of  the  older  hachure  which 
Whitney  used.  Aside,  nevertheless,  from  such 
minor  improvements,  Gannett  has.  been  map- 
ping the  United  States  by  the  method  which  he 
learned  from  Hoffmann  in  1869. 

In  a  sense,  of  course,  all  these  happenings 
were  inevitable.  Any  one  of  a  dozen  men  con- 


312        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

fronted  with  Whitney's  problem  would  have  hit 
upon  his  solution  of  it.  Still,  it  did  happen  to 
be  Whitney,  and  not  somebody  else,  who  im- 
pressed a  group  of  able  disciples  with  certain 
ideas  and  standards  and  methods  just  at  the 
particular  time  when  the  world  was  ready  for 
them.  In  the  same  way,  in  1863,  Whitney  hap- 
pened to  be  experimenting  with  photography 
in  a  waterless  country  when  the  first  dry  plates 
were  coming  on  the  market,  and  thus  was  the 
first  to  employ  systematically  this  important 
adjunct  to  a  modern  geological  survey.  For  the 
most  part,  the  scientific  world  knows  American 
geological  surveying  through  the  publications 
of  the  Government;  the  present  generation  of 
geologists  and  topographers  has  come  up  since 
the  beginnings  of  the  United  States  surveys, 
and  knows  little  of  its  scientific  ancestry.  Never- 
theless, the  California  Survey  first  shook  the 
tree  of  which  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey  has  gathered  up  most  of  the  fruit. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  STURGIS-HOOPER  PROFESSORSHIP. 
1874-1879 

AFTER  fourteen  years  of  California,  Whitney 
had  fairly  earned  a  vacation,  while  his  wife,  al- 
ways insatiate  for  new  experiences,  had  long  set 
her  heart  on  a  year  of  travel.  The  family  sailed 
for  Germany  early  in  June  of  1874;  and  while 
the  daughter  remained  with  German  friends  in 
Hanover,  Whitney  himself  visited  scientific  ac- 
quaintances, and  attended  scientific  meetings. 
The  chief  attraction  was  an  important  congress 
at  Stockholm.  After  that,  the  plan  was  to  travel 
east  as  the  spirit  moved  and  Mrs.  Whitney's 
health  permitted,  to  visit  Australia,  and  come 
home  around  the  world. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

DRESDEN,  July  15,  1874. 

DEAR  W.  D., — .  .  .  In  Berlin  we  did  all  the 
usual  sights,  and  I  was  greatly  attracted  by  the 
Egyptian  collection.  I  saw  Weber  [the  great 
Sanskrit  scholar]  a  few  minutes;  his  wife  and 
family  were  "gone  to  the  Bad  "  —  where  all  the 
Germans  go.  ...  I  went  with  Richthofen  to 
meetings  of  the  Geological  and  Geographical 


314        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Societies,  and  heard  some  of  the  African  trav- 
elers hold  forth  —  namentlich  Rohlfs  and 
Schweinfurth.  Had  a  ticket  to  the  Leibnitz 
anniversary  of  the  Academy,  but  found  it  too 
hot  and  crowded,  and  so  gave  it  up. 

Richthofen  has  secured  the  publication  of 
his  work  by  the  Prussian  Government.  It  will 
comprise  four  quarto  volumes  and  an  atlas 
of  40-50  maps.  His  work  effects  a  complete 
revolution  in  the  topography  of  China.  New- 
berry's  and  Pumpelly's  discovery  of  the  Trias- 
sic  age  of  the  coal  is  all  set  to  o.  R.  found  fos- 
sils in  the  greatest  abundance  and  especially 
Silurian  and  Carboniferous.  It  is  strange  that 
Pumpelly  missed  them  so  entirely. 

We  go  to  Tharandt  to-morrow  and  thence 
to  Freiberg  and  into  Thuringia,  to  some  quiet 
spot  where  we  will  spend  a  week ;  then  to  Berlin, 
Copenhagen,  where  we  meet  Desor,  and  Stock- 
holm by  the  first  of  August,  if  nothing  unex- 
pected happens.  In  Dresden  we  have  done 
the  big  sights  and  some  of  the  side  shows  .  .  . 
seen  a  lot  of  Californians  .  .  .  and  various  and 
sundry  others.  I  do  not  find  Germany  so  very 
much  changed  —  prices  are  higher,  and  highest 
of  all  here,  but  still  even  here  not  extortionate. 
...  In  one  respect  I  notice  a  marked  change 
and  that  is  the  disappearance  of  the  French 
language.  We  hardly  hear  a  word  of  French 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    315 

spoken;  while  I  remember  distinctly  thirty  (!) 
years  ago,  that  French  was  much  spoken  at 
the  hotels.  I  do  not  find  many  Germans  who 
speak  English  fluently;  the  universal  know- 
ledge of  that  language  said  to  prevail  here  is 
"nicht  vorhanden."  .  .  . 

Since  leaving  home  I  have  heard  very  little 
of  what  is  going  on.  .  .  .  The  new  edition  of 
the  "  Guidebook  "  is  out  and  so  is  the  "  Baro- 
metric Hypsometry."  ...  I  am  fat  and  lazy  — 
so  lazy  that  I  feel  only  fit  to  be  put  in  a  pig 
show! 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

NEUFCHATEL,  August  22,  1874. 
MY  DEAR  WILL, —  We  have  had  hard  times 
in  our  family  for  the  last  month,  for  Louisa  has 
been  very  sick ;  and  in  fact,  I  thought  it  very 
doubtful  if  she  would  get  back  home  again. 
We  went  to  Hamburg  partly  because  it  was  on 
the  way  to  Stockholm,  and  partly  because  it  was 
a  good  point  from  which  to  start  for  home,  in 
case  of  necessity.  Just  when  the  case  looked 
darkest,  and  we  had  telegraphed  to  Nora  to 
come  to  Hamburg,  Louisa's  disease  took  a 
favorable  turn,  and  ever  since  she  has  been  im- 
proving, although  at  a  rate  which  could  only 
be  measured  by  a  micrometer  screw.  She  lives 
entirely  on  oatmeal  gruel  and  bouillon, — the 


316        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

only  things  for  sick  folks  that  we  have  been 
able  to  scare  up  in  this  country.  We  have  spent 
the  last  ten  days  at  Glion,  1 500  feet  or  so  above 
Lake  Geneva,  a  place  unrivaled  in  beauty  of 
scenery  and  healthiness  of  atmosphere.  On  ar- 
riving here,  we  met  Desor,  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  Stockholm,  and  who  has  changed 
very  little  in  appearance  from  what  he  was 
when  we  were  together  on  Lake  Superior  — 
now  twenty-four  years  ago !  We  go  up  to  his 
Chalet  in  the  Jura  to-morrow  to  spend  a  few 
days,  if  it  suits  Louisa's  health. 

TO    PROFESSOR   JEFFRIES   WYMAN 

NEUFCHATEL,  August  22,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  DR.  WYMAN,  —  Circumstances 
made  it  impossible  for  me  to  go  to  Stockholm 
after  all,  for  which  I  was  very  sorry.  My  wife  was 
taken  seriously  ill,  and  we  could  get  no  farther 
than  Hamburg;  and  when  she  was  able  to 
travel,  it  was  too  late  for  the  meeting.  .  .  . 

Desor  gives  most  glowing  accounts  of  the 
meeting,  and  is  highly  impressed  with  the  good 
work  the  Swedes  are  doing  in  science  —  their 
painstaking  accuracy  without  brag,  He  seems 
to  have  lost  confidence  in  the  French,  and  has 
not  been  to  Paris  since  the  war. 

I  feel  now  more  inclined  to  publish  my  Cali- 
fornia results  (in  regard  to  prehistoric  man) 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP     317 

in  a  special  volume,  with  a  full  account  of  the 
geology  connected  with  the  work ;  for  without 
a  full  setting  forth  of  the  geological  structure 
of  the  country,  it  will  be  impossible  for  any  one 
to  appreciate  the  character  of  the  evidence  .  .  . 
from  the  anthropological  point  of  view.  At  all 
events,  it  is  well  that  I  did  not  bring  these  mat- 
ters up  at  Stockholm;  for  in  the  crowd  (of  1400 
persons)  and  the  pressure  of  business,  the  most 
that  I  could  have  got  was  an  hour,  and  that 
would  n't  answer  the  purpose  for  laying  the 
facts  before  the  public  in  such  a  way  that  they 
could  be  comprehended  and  believed  in.  ... 

So  in  the  end,  because  of  Mrs.  Whitney's 
illness,  the  plans  for  travel  round  the  world 
came  to  naught,  and  the  middle  of  November 
saw  the  Whitneys  back  at  1 2  Oxford  Street. 

The  many-sided  activity  of  the  California 
days  continued  throughout  Whitney's  profes- 
sorship at  Harvard.  His  old  ally,  Oilman,  con- 
sulted him  with  regard  to  the  development  of 
Johns  Hopkins;  Boyd  Dawkins  besought  his 
advice  for  Owens  College  at  Manchester.  He 
drafted  the  petition  to  Congress,  in  which  the 
learned  men  of  the  United  States  asked  the 
removal  of  the  tariff  on  books ;  he  had  a  hand 
in  preparing  the  bill  for  reorganizing  the  man- 
agement of  the  Yosemite  grant.  He  wrote  pop- 


3i8        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

ular  accounts  of  his  own  work  for  the  "  North 
American  Review,"  and  reviews  of  other  men's 
books  for  the  "Nation";  and  he  went  down 
to  New  Haven  and  lectured  to  the  Scientific 
School  on  the  Egyptian  pyramids. 

The  academic  duties  of  the  years  which  fol- 
lowed proved  to  be  of  the  most  congenial  sort. 
The  short-lived  Mining  School  of  which  Whit- 
ney had  been  the  head  was  merged,  in  1875, 
with  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School;  there 
was,  in  consequence,  a  short  period  of  uncer- 
tainty as  to  Whitney's  status,  and  then,  on 
April  14,  1875,  he  was  reappointed  to  his  old 
chair,  the  Sturgis-Hooper  Professorship  of  Ge- 
ology, which  had  been  founded  ten  years  before 
for  the  special  purpose  of  keeping  him  in  the 
East.  A  month  later  he  entered  the  Faculty  of 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  in  the 
place  left  vacant  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Both  positions  he  retained  until  his  death. 

The  Sturgis-Hooper  Professorship  is  among 
the  best  endowed  chairs  in  the  University;  and 
its  occupant  is,  by  the  terms  of  the  foundation, 
absolved  from  that  particular  bane  of  college 
work  in  America,  the  routine  instruction  of  be- 
ginners. It  still  remains  one  of  the  few  profes- 
sorships in  this  country  after  the  German  plan 
—  the  feast  for  the  great  scholar,  for  the  under- 
graduate the  incidental  crumb.  Freed  thus  from 


STURGIS-HOOPER  PROFESSORSHIP    319 

the  drudgery  of  administrative  duties  and  of 
elementary  teaching,  and  largely  cut  off  by  his 
wife's  ill  health  from  social  life,  Whitney  spent 
himself  without  stint  on  the  professional  train- 
ing of  mature  men,  on  his  private  studies,  and 
on  the  salvage  of  the  California  Survey.  His 
lectures  were  carefully  prepared,  were  generally 
delivered  from  note-book  outlines,  and  were 
abundantly  illustrated  from  his  extensive  li- 
brary. He  took  pride  in  placing  the  best  books 
and  maps  before  his  classes,  although  he  some- 
times had  occasion  to  lament  heedless  injury  to 
his  choice  possessions. 

At  no  other  American  institution  could 
Whitney  have  been  either  so  contented  or  so 
useful  as  at  Harvard.  He  was  untrammeled 
either  by  trustee  or  young  person ;  he  was  en- 
couraged to  apply  the  methods  and  standards 
under  which  he  had  himself  been  trained. 
"  Here,"  he  affirmed,  "  I  could  and  did  lecture 
as  freely  as  I  could  have  done  in  Germany." 
On  the  other  hand,  only  the  Agassiz  Museum, 
with  its  ample  funds  for  publication  and  its  su- 
perb opportunity  for  work,  could  utilize  to  the 
full  a  man  with  so  few  special  gifts  as  a  teacher. 

For  Whitney,  in  spite  of  unusual  skill  in  set- 
ting forth  ideas  in  print,  had  but  moderate  suc- 
cess as  an  instructor.  His  somewhat  thin  and 
high-pitched  voice  was  ill  suited  to  large  audi- 


320        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

ences ;  and  he  had,  besides,  the  misfortune  to 
come  to  his  teaching  so  late  in  life  that  he  had 
forgotten  his  own  student  days,  and  never  quite 
understood  the  workings  of  the  adolescent 
mind.  His  popular  lectures,  open  to  the  general 
public  as  well  as  to  members  of  the  University, 
were  successful,  but  not  conspicuously  so.  A 
popular  reputation  is  apt  to  be  conditioned  on 
the  absence  of  certain  qualities  that  are  highly 
essential  to  a  man  of  science. 

Doubtless,  in  the  course  of  time,  Whitney 
would  have  attained  in  the  teaching  art  to  the 
standard,  by  no  means  exacting,  of  the  average 
college  instructor,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  pe- 
culiar organization  of  his  department.  He  be- 
longed-rather  to  the  Museum  than  to  the  Col- 
lege ;  and  it  is  the  policy  of  the  Museum  to 
subordinate  teaching  to  research.  Only  by  his 
own  choice  does  the  Sturgis-Hooper  Professor 
of  Geology  do  any  teaching  at  all.  Moreover, 
the  department  had  in  Nathaniel  Southgate 
Shaler  a  man  of  extraordinary  gifts  for  interest- 
ing and  inspiring  boys.  Naturally,  then,  the  or- 
ganization of  the  department  and  the  elemen- 
tary instruction  within  it,  fell  to  Shaler  and  his 
subordinates.  Only  after  a  student  had  become 
pretty  well  advanced  in  his  subject,  and  had 
pretty  definitely  committed  himself  to  a  scien- 
tific career,  did  he  come  under  Whitney. 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    321 

Whitney  usually  offered  one  or  two  courses 
of  lectures,  amounting  altogether  to  no  more 
than  three  or  four  hours  a  week ;  and  portions 
of  even  this  small  amount  he  sometimes  turned 
over  to  an  assistant.  He  did  almost  no  field 
work  either  with  his  pupils  or  privately.  He  had 
no  laboratory,  and  seldom  so  much  as  exhibited 
a  specimen  to  his  pupils.  His  classes  were  small, 
usually  no  more  than  a  dozen  or  twenty;  and 
he  rarely  gave  any  instruction  outside  his  for- 
mal lectures.  He  had,  therefore,  no  special 
group  of  disciples  to  disseminate  his  opinions 
or  assist  him  in  his  private  work. 

Nevertheless,  Whitney's  influence  on  geologic 
progress  in  America  has  been  very  considerable. 
His  students  were  few,  but  they  were  picked  men. 
Lane  of  the  Michigan  Survey  was  his  pupil,  and 
Landes  of  the  Washington  Survey.  He  gave  to 
the  United  States  Geological  Survey  Gannett, 
Marvine,  Brooks,  Diller,  Keith,  Schrader,  and 
Spurr;  and  to  the  educational  institutions  of 
the  country,  Davis,  Wolff,  Jackson,  Eastman, 
Daly,  Jagger,  Collie,  Dodge,  Tarr,  Cobb,  West- 
gate,  Ladd,  Foerste.  He  trained,  therefore,  not 
only  a  considerable  body  of  working  geologists 
and  mining  engineers,  but  that  whole  group  of 
teachers  who  have  of  late  years  been  revolution- 
izing geographical  instruction  in  America  from 
the  universities  down  to  the  primary  schools. 


322        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Whitney's  work  at  Harvard,  then,  was  by  no 
means  unlike  his  work  in  California.  He  did 
his  routine  teaching  as  he  did  his  routine  sur- 
veying. In  addition,  at  Harvard  as  in  Califor- 
nia, he  set  .a  standard  for  other  men  to  follow. 
He  was  fundamentally  a  critic  and  a  productive 
scholar.  He  took  men  already  well  trained,  to 
whom  his  encyclopedic  knowledge  was  at  once 
a  revelation  and  a  challenge,  and  he  showed 
them  mercilessly  their  limitations  and  their 
faults.  They  went  to  him  to  be  taught  economic 
geology,  and  they  learned  accuracy,  caution, 
the  wealth  of  information  already  in  print,  and 
the  admixture  of  confusion  which  accompanies 
it.  While  he  placed  his  books  at  their  service 
and  taught  them  the  sources  of  knowledge,  he 
taught  them  also  the  sources  of  error.  Whitney 
was  not  a  popular  teacher,  nor  even  an  inspir- 
ing one.  He  was  an  accurate  and  painstak- 
ing scholar,  who  set  for  his  pupils  an  ideal  of 
scholarship,  and  taught  them  not  to  make  mis- 
takes. 

FROM  THOMAS  S.  BAYNES,  EDITOR  OF  THE  "  ENCY- 


CLOPEDIA BRITANNICA" 


EDINBURGH,  May  24,  1875. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  brother,  Dr.  Whitney 
(whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  welcoming  here 
lately),  tells  me  that  you  are  willing  to  give  us 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    323 

your  valuable  help  in  the  American  depart- 
ment of  the  new  edition  of  the  "  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica." 

The  first  heading  of  importance  in  advance 
is  California.  I  am  most  anxious  to  have  a 
good  article  on  this  subject  and  hope  you  will 
be  able  to  undertake  it.  The  country  has  ad- 
vanced so  rapidly  since  the  publication  of  the 
last  edition  that  the^old  article  will  require  to 
be  largely  added  to,  and  perhaps  altogether 
rewritten.  You  will  be  the  best  judge  as  to 
this.  .  .  . 

The  new  article  might,  I  think,  extend  to 
nearly  double  the  length  of  the  old  — say  ten 
to  twelve  pages.  With  regard  to  time,  I  should 
be  glad  to  have  it  as  soon  as  you  can  conve- 
niently prepare  the  pages  —  within  the  next 
three  or  four  months  if  possible. 

I  may  add  that  the  rate  of  payment  for  origi- 
nal articles  is  two  guineas  a  page.  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  July  15,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  Louisa  is  no  better, 
and  she  feels  pretty  blue.  She  is  at  Prout's 
Neck  now, . . .  and  I  am  cleaning  house  and  get- 
ting things  in  order  generally;  also  writing  an 
article  on  Geological  Surveys  for  the  October 
1  number  of  the  "  North  American  Review." 


324        JOSIAH   D WIGHT  WHITNEY 

This,  with  the  one  in  the  July  number  on 
Geographical  Surveys,  will  make  a  libellum, 
which  I  hope  will  be  of  value  to  some.  I  am 
just  taking  possession  of  quarters  in  the  Mu- 
seum building,  and  hesitating  about  buying  a 
lot  of  land  adjacent,  on  which  to  build  a  house. 
The  uncertain  condition  of  Louisa's  health 
takes  away  all  my  force,  and  keeps  me  de- 
pressed and  anxious. 

Hayden  was  here  the  other  day,  and  Gabb 
has  just  gone  away,  having  brought  many  in- 
teresting things  from  Central  America  for  me 
to  see.  Among  other  things,  he  has  worked  up 
several  of  the  Indian  languages  there  with  a 
great  deal  of  care  and  skill. 

.  .  .  You  have  heard,  I  suppose,  of  the  very 
sudden  death  of  Winlock,  to  whom  I  was  much 
attached.  His  illness,  for  which  the  doctors 
could  find  no  name,  lasted  only  six  or  eight 
hours.  He  never  knew  that  his  end  was  near. 
He  just  stopped  work,  and  laid  down  and  died, 
having  exhausted  his  resources  in  the  way  of 
vitality.  His  poor  wife  found  herself,  instantly, 
not  only  robbed  of  a  husband  whom  she  adored, 
but  with  six  children  on  her  hands.  ...  A 
house  has  been  bought  for  her,  not  far  from 
North  Avenue,  and  she  will  soon  leave  the 
place  where  the  poor  Apothecary  had  done  so 
much  and  bragged  so  little.  .  .  . 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP     325 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  20,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  — .  .  .  In  a  few  days, 
I  will  send  you  and  Brewer  copies  of  a  little 
work  entitled  "California —  Multum  in  Parvo." 
It  is  my  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica"  article  on 
that  subject,  which  the  editor  had  set  up  and 
printed  here  to  secure  copyright.  They  allowed 
me  to  have  twelve  copies ;  of  course  not  to  be 
made  public  in  any  way.  I  flatter  myself  that 
it  has  got  about  as  much  reliable  information 
crammed  into  it  as  could  well  be  packed  into 
the  allotted  space. 

Later,  Whitney  brought  together  all  his 
"Britannica"  articles  into  a  two-volume  work 
entitled  "The  United  States:  Facts  and  Fig- 
ures illustrating  the  Physical  Geography  of  the 
Country  and  its  Natural  Resources."  First,  how- 
ever, he  made  a  beginning  with  the  materials 
left  over  from  the  California  Survey,  —  two  vol- 
umes of  the  Botany,  one  of  the  Economic 
Geology,  and  a  work  in  two  parts  on  the  Au- 
riferous Gravels.  It  was  not,  however,  until 
September  of  1877,  after  a  month  in  California, 
that  Whitney  obtained  permission  to  use  these 
materials  "  without  expense  to  the  State." 

The  work  on  Tertiary  gravels  led  naturally 


326        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

to  a  study  of  Preglacial  and  of  Glacial  climate ; 
and  this  in  turn  not  only  became  one  of  the 
chief  interests  of  Whitney's  Cambridge  days, 
but  in  addition  resulted  in  one  of  his  most 
important  contributions  to  geological  theory. 
"  The  Auriferous  Gravels  "  had  for  its  sequel 
"  The  Climatic  Changes  of  Later  Geologic 
Time."  In  this  Whitney  maintained,  contrary  to 
the  prevailing  opinion  among  extreme  glacial- 
ists,  that  the  Great  Ice  Age  was  a  time  neither 
of  high  elevation  of  land  surface  nor  of  espe- 
cial cold.  He  opposed  the  theory  of  a  single 
continental  ice  sheet,  emphasized  the  impor- 
tance of  local  glaciers,  and  explained  Preglacial 
climate,  the  Ice  Age,  and  the  present  desicca- 
tion of  the  interior  of  the  larger  continents  as 
stages  in  a  continuous  process.  The  question 
is  still  one  of  the  unsolved  problems  of  science. 
The  most  that  one  can  say  is  that  general 
opinion  is  now  considerably  nearer  to  Whit- 
ney's position  than  it  was  when  he  wrote. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  24,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  WILLIAM, — .  .  .  I  have  been  re- 
miss in  writing ;  but  I  have  had  little  that  was 
agreeable  to  say  on  any  subject.  The  disgusting 
revelations  at  Washington  .  .  .  are  enough  to 
make  one  sad  down  to  the  very  bottom  of  his 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    327 

boots  —  if  one's  soul  extends  so  far.  And 
Louisa's  state  of  health  takes  away  all  my  elas- 
ticity. I  feel  it  as  a  weight  ever  bearing  me 
down.  She  has  days  when  she  is,  comparatively, 
so  comfortable  that  she  keeps  on  the  appearance 
of  being  somewhat  as  others;  but  she  is  never 
free  from  pain,  and  often  it  is  a  great  deal  more 
than  she  can  bear.  ...  I  have  not  been  away 
from  the  house  over  night  since  Thanksgiving, 
but  would  go  to  New  York  now,  if  I  did  not 
feel  unwilling  to  leave  home  unless  it  were  ab- 
solutely necessary. 

...  I  have  read  with  interest  all  that  has 
come  to  my  hands,  in  regard  to  the  Miiller  con- 
troversy. You  certainly  have  come  out  "  all 
right,"  in  every  respect.  But  the  English  will 
uphold  him  "  quand  meme."  There  is  no  help- 
ing that !  His  notice  of  the  [W.  D.  W.'s  Ger- 
man] dictionary  I  felt  to  be  Jesuitical  in  the 
highest  degree.  The  answer  in  the  "Jenaer 
Literatur  Zeitung"  I  wish  I  could  see,  but 
they  do  not  take  that  periodical  in  our  benighted 
library.  Van  Name's  article  is  excellent,  bring- 
ing out  some  points  more  clearly  than  they 
have  been  before,  and  "  rubbing  it "  in,  so  to 
speak.  .  .  . 

My  course  of  lectures  closes  next  week. 
After  that,  I  shall  take  hold  of  the  Geology 
(Auriferous  Gravels)  in  earnest.  The  plates  are 


328        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

just  finished  and  are  quite  satisfactorily  done. 
Whether  the  volume  will  be  published  uniform 
with  the  rest  of  the  series,  or  as  one  of  the 
series  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Museum  of  Com- 
parative Zoology,  I  have  not  yet  positively 
decided. 

I  have  given  three  dozen  lectures  on  eco- 
nomical geology,  which  have  vcost  me  a  large 
amount  of  labor  to  prepare,  having  been  illus- 
trated with  innumerable  diagrams  on  the  black- 
board and  otherwise.  Now,  I  could  give  such 
lectures  again  with  comparatively  little  trouble. 
I  needed  the  practice  in  lecturing,  and  rather 
like  it,  but  it  takes  a  fearful  amount  of  time.  I 
have  worked  a  good  deal  on  the  subject  of  vein 
phenomena,  with  a  view  to  the  publication  of 
a  work  on  that  subject.  It  is  one  which  has 
always  had  a  special  interest  for  me. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  23,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  —  Corporation  wants  to 
give  you  the  degree  of  LL.  D.  this  Commence- 
ment, and  Mr.  Eliot  desires  that  you  should  be 
present  to  receive  it.  Can  you  ?  Will  you  ?  If 
not,  why  not?  I  won't  say  anything  about  how 
much  it  would  gratify  me  and  Goodwin  and 
Child  to  have  you  here.  But  if  you  won't  come, 
tell  me  what  I  must  tell  Mr.  Eliot.  Do  think 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    329 

about  it  and  not  refuse  unless  for  some  par- 
ticularly good  reason. 

If  you  don't  come,  I  shall  tie  my  head  up  in 
my  gown  and  sit  in  the  cellar.  ...  Of  course 
nothing  is  to  be  said  about  the  LL.D.  matter. 

..."  Botany  of  California,"  Vol.  I,  the  first 
of  the  posthumous  volumes  of  the  survey,  is 
now  ready. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  July  18,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  Moved  by  this  ver- 
flucht  wetter,  I  have  written  an  article  for  the 
"[American]  Naturalist"  entitled  "Are  We 
Drying  up?"  and  have  another  in  hand  on  a 
cognate  subject.  .  .  .  Isn't  the  heat  atrocious? 
.  .  .  Cambridge  is  quite  deserted.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  I  have  just  heard  of  Ehrenberg's  death. 
He  and  old  Heinrich  Rose  were  two  of  the 
best  men  God  ever  made ! 

P wouldn't  come  to  see  me  —  because  I 

criticised  his  North  American  map,  I  suppose. 
He  has  never  written  me  since  that.  He  is 
about  the  most  unpopular  man  in  Germany. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September 11,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  WILLIAM,  — .  .  .  My  own  summer's 
work  has  been  nearly  nil.  Physically  I  am  strong 


330        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

and  well,  but  mentally  a  failure.  So  much 
anxiety  about  Louisa  has  quite  upset  me.  I 
wrote  two  or  three  articles  for  the  "  Natural- 
ist," in  which  publication  I  have  a  small  pe- 
cuniary interest.  One,  I  send  you;  another  one, 
much  longer,  which  will  follow  in  the  October 
and  November  numbers,  will,  I  hope,  interest 
you.  It  is  on  the  prairies.  My  plans  for  pub- 
lication of  the  survey  matters  have,  after  much 
pondering,  taken  pretty  nearly  their  final  shape. 
One  volume — uniform  with  the  survey  vol- 
umes —  I  propose  to  push  ahead  at  once.  It 
will  be  as  much  economical  in  its  character  as 
possible.  Another  one,  on  the  auriferous  gravel 
deposits  of  the  Pacific  slopes,  will  appear  in 
the  Museum  publications,  quarto  form.  One 
hundred  fifty  pages  of  the  economical  vol- 
umes are  in  type,  and  the  lithographing  of  the 
illustrations  for  the  other  volume  is  nearly 
done.  I  shall  have  an  elective  this  winter  in 
economical  geology,  and  also  give  a  course  of 
popular  (University)  lectures  on  the  physical 
geography  of  North  America. 

TO  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  January^,  1877. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  — .  .  .  I  have  begun 
taking  lessons  in  Russian  of  an  individual 
named  Panin.  .  Am  curious  to  see  if  I  have 


J.  D.   Whitney.      Aetat.  about  58 


IUbiJ:i  H     JLHY  -{  :  . 


and 'well,  but  . mental jy  a    h  :ui«:. 
anxiety  about  Louisa  has  .quite  npse 
wrote  two  or  three  articles  for  the   ".Niii 
ist,"  in  which   publication  I  have  a  small  p^ 
cimiary  interest  One,  I  send  you;  another  one, 
much  longer,  which  will  follow  in  the  October 
and  November  numbers,  will,  I  hope,  interest 
you.    It  is  on  the  prairies.  My  plans  for  pub- 
cation  of  the  survey  matters  have,  after  much 
pondering,  taken  pretty  nearly  their  final  shape. 
One  volume — -uniform  with   the  survey  vol- 
umes— I  propose  to  push  ahead  at  once,    It 
will  be  as  much  economical  in  it*  character  as 
possible.  Another  on«%<$f>fog  \«-riter0u$  gravel 
deposits  of  th--    '•  ..'ufx.  '*;•.-•«  •'.-,..  *•>*!  Appear  in 
the  Museum  :-..-..*   .^MJ-IU  (ar^h  One 

hundred   fifty;-,,,  >:•**    ^ccnonyc^.  ^^ 

nines  are  in  UP  -t  ana  Ibc  lithograpliiog^  $£ 
:1  lustrations  'ifyv.  the  other"  ?olbii\^  • *&r  Utisalyi 
i  shall,  have  an  elective  U4^.^^er^- 
economical  geology,  and  also  giv,s '-a ''Crotirse ,.:i>f 
ilar  (Ufiiversity)  lectures 
North  America. 


TO  'WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

;  •  ^  €A  M  BRIDGE,  jfonbar< 

MY  mAR  W.  D,  ,  w.,^v  '•;  I 
ing.t  essoas   b  -  Russuia  '  ot     - 
.  /T  '.  Am  ct 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    331 

grown  too  old  to  learn  anything!  August 
Fries  [a  son  of  the  celebrated  violinist]  asked 
me,  yesterday,  if  I  did  n't  want  to  take  lessons 
on  the  violin  ! !  He  comes  out  now  and  fiddles 
to  Nora's  accompaniment,  once  a  week. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  23,  1877. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  — .  .  .  You  ask  what  I 
have  been  doing  this  winter.  Chiefly  learning 
to  lecture.  I  have  given  two  courses  extending 
through  the  whole  year,  speaking  without  notes 
almost  entirely,  and  trying  to  get  the  habit  of 
it.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  I  put  off  doing  this 
much  longer,  I  should  never  be  able  to  do  it  at 
all,  and  that  it  was  a  desirable  thing  to  be  able 
to  do  it ;  to  have  one's  information  so  arranged 
in  his  noddle  that  he  could  bring  it  forth  flu- 
ently and  without  making  a  muddle  of  it.  I 
use  also  a  great  many  diagrams,  etc.,  most  of 
which  I  have  to  prepare  myself  and  many  of 
which  are  good  for  future  use.  I  am  preparing  to 
giveacourse  next  year  on  "  Mountain  Form  and 
Structure."  My  physical  geography  of  North 
America  course  ends  May  5,  and  then  I  am 
going  at  the  gravel  volume,  hammer  and  tongs. 

I  am  making  some  progress  in  Russian  and 
find  my  old  love  of  "language  and  the  study 
of  language  "  to  have  been  only  dormant  these 


332        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

last  twenty  years.  Have  read  a  short  novel,  and 
some  fairy  tales. 

TO    BARON    F.   VON    RICHTHOFEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  i,  1877. 

MY  DEAR  BARON,  —  Your  welcome  letter  was 
all  the  more  welcome  because  it  brought  the 
news  that  a  volume  of  your  great  work  was 
finished.  I  am  sure  that  no  one  will  study  it 
with  greater  zeal  and  interest  than  I  shall,  and 
I  congratulate  you  most  heartily  on  the  aus- 
picious event.  It  is  all  the  more  interesting  to 
me  because  of  late  I  have  been  working  on  the 
physical  geography  and  geology  of  Asia,  and 
as  a  proof  of  my  desire  to  learn  (even  at  my 
age ! )  I  have,  three  months  ago,  commenced 
the  study  of  Russian,  in  which  I  hope  I  am 
making  some  progress.  I  have  heard  of  you 
occasionally  through  the  papers,  and  noticed 
the  frequently  repeated  statement  that  you  had 
accepted  a  professorship  at  Bonn.  When  I  saw 
you  last,  I  was  in  great  trouble  ;  my  wife  seemed 
to  be  near  the  end  of  her  life.  I  had  hardly  any 
hope  that  she  would  live  through  the  winter 
when  she  reached  home.  After  a  year  or  more 
of  much  suffering  from  a  sort  of  nervous  fever, 
she  began  to  get  better,  and  now  is  much  bet- 
ter, although  invalided.  .  .  . 

The  legislature  of  California  has  done  no- 


STURGIS-HOOPER  PROFESSORSHIP     333 

thing  for  the  survey  since  I  saw  you.  What  I  am 
publishing  is  at  my  own  risk  and  expense,  and 
I  have  not  the  support  but  the  opposition  of 
the  Regents  of  the  University.  The  first  vol- 
ume of  the  Botany  was  paid  for,  in  part,  by 
private  subscription.  The  gravel  volume  will 
form  one  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Zoological  Mu- 
seum —  I  paying  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
expense. 

Hayden's  work  is  of  much  greater  value  than 
Wheeler's,  as  the  former  has  excellent  assist- 
ants, Wilson  of  the  California  Survey  having 
succeeded  Gardner  as  chief  topographer.  Some 
of  his  other  leading  men  are  my  pupils.  .  .  . 
Hoffmann  is  in  Virginia  City.  .  .  .  Gabb  is  in 
Santo  Domingo,  always  hard  at  work.  Gardner 
is  head  of  the  topographical  survey  of  New 
York.  King's  work  is  nearly  done  and  will  be 
all  out  this  year.  No  doubt  it  will  be  a  fine 
contribution  to  science.  Pumpelly  is  at  his 
home  in  Owego,  N.  Y.  .  .  .  I  rarely  hear  from 
him,  for  he  is  a  detester  of  letter-writing.  I 
have  been  much  interested  in  your  contribu- 
tions to  the  second  edition  of  Yule's  Marco  Polo. 

TO    F.    VON    RICHTHOFEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  24,  1878. 

.  .  .  Last  summer  I  spent  a  month  in  Ne- 
vada, part  of  the  time  at  Eureka,  and  a  few 


334        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

days  at  Virginia  City.  I  went  down  into  the 
"Hot  Mines"  and  observed  as  high  as  156*4° 
Fahrenheit  at  the  bottom  of  one  (the  water), 
the  air  from  130°  to  140°  Fahrenheit.  I  was 
intensely  interested  in  the  physiological  results 
of  this  working  in  much  higher  temperatures 
than  ever  before  known,  and  would  gladly  have 
spent  the  whole  summer  there.  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  3,  1878. 

...  I  was  just  going  myself  this  week  to 
Philadelphia,  to  see  Gabb  once  more,  but  I 
have  just  seen  a  letter  from  Baird  to  Allen, 
stating  that  he  died  on  the  3oth.  On  that  very 
day  he  wrote  quite  a  long  letter  with  a  firm 
hand  to  Louisa.  I  am  glad  he  has  not  lingered 
in  pain  and  sorrow.  .  .  . 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September  22,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  —  ...  Take  it  easy,  young 
man !  don't  be  in  a  hurry  to  get  back  to  work 
again.  Have  at  least  a  summer's  vacation.  I 
wish  that  we  had  arranged  to  go  up  the  Nile 
together,  this  coming  winter!  As  for  me,  I 
start  for  the  Himalaya  to-morrow,  via  photo- 
graphic line ;  that  is,  [William  Morris]  Davis 
arrives  from  India  with  83  selected  photographs 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP     335 

of  mountain  scenery,  which  he  says  are  fine.  I 
also  rejoice  in  a  picture  (in  oil)  by  [William] 
Keith,  of  California  mountain  scenery,  which 
adorns  the  hall  of  our  house,  and  which  was, 
so  to  speak,  a  present  from  Goodyear,  who  has 
come  on  from  California  with  a  lot  of  Keith's 
pictures,  on  speculation.  They  are  now  on  ex- 
hibition in  New  York.  Last  night  I  returned 
from  Trenton,  N.  J.,  where  I  have  been  look- 
ing up  flint  implements  in  the  "drift,"  of  which 
something  in  my  gravel  volume.  The  summer 
has  slipped  away  and  I  have  hardly  done  more 
than  "clean  house,"  including  repapering  the 
lower  part  and  fixing  up  generally.  Cleanliness  is 
next  to  godliness,  they  say  (who  says  ? ) ;  that  is 
my  only  chance,  I  fear.  Now  for  hard  work  on  the 
gravel  volume!  Meantime  I  have,  with  [Wil- 
liam Henry]  Pettee's  help,  prepared  a  supple- 
ment to  the  "  Barometric  Hypsometry,"  setting 
forth  results  obtained  in  California;  and  have, 
I  hope,  concluded  the  negotiations  for  com- 
pleting the  "Water-birds"  in  two  magnificent 
volumes.  Governor  Stanford  called  on  me  yes- 
terday (with  $1,000,000  in  his  pocket  for  the 
survey),  but  unluckily  I  missed  him.  The  Bot- 
any (II),  for  which  the  funds  are  provided,  is 
stuck  on  Engelmann.  How  long  he  will  con- 
tinue to  let  us  stick,  I  cannot  tell.  I  am  almost 
out  of  patience.  .  .  . 


336        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Louisa's  little  book  [a  story  of  her  life  in 
England,  entitled  "Peasy's  Childhood"]  is 
done,  and  is  lovely  to  look  at.  It  is  to  be  dis- 
tributed to  particular  friends  at  Christmas ; 
only  fifty  copies  printed  — from  which  you  may 
infer  that  she  (Louisa)  has  not  more  than  that 
number  of  particular  friends.  Three  hundred 
will  be  the  number  I  shall  have  to  dispose  of, 
of  my  gravel  volume;  which  I  shall  not  give 
away  to  particular  friends,  but  only  to  those 
on  the  big  exchange  list.  The  rest  at  $10  per 
copy  (with  a  cast  of  Jo  Bowers 's  [i.  e.  Cala- 
veras]  skull  thrown  in). 

The  enclosed  extract  fell  under  my  eye  in 
last  evening's  paper,  after  this  was  written.  I 
never  knew  before  what  my  religious  faith  was, 
but  see  now  that  I  am  a  Unitarian. 

The  period  of  independent  geological  sur- 
veys by  the  several  states  was  now  drawing  to 
a  close :  the  United  States  Geological  Survey 
was  about  to  be  born.  The  bill  before  Congress 
provided  for  a  consolidation  of  the  various  gov- 
ernment surveys  under  King,  Hayden,  Wheeler, 
and  Powell ;  and  for  the  directorship  of  the 
new  organization,  King  and  Hayden  were  the 
foremost  candidates. 

Whitney,  appealed  to  for  aid  by  both  men, 
in  spite  of  his  personal  feeling  for  his  old  friend 


FAMILY  GROUP 

J.  D.  Whitney,  Sr.'s,  children  and  grandchildren  under  the  Jonathan  Edwards  Elm  in 

Northampton,  1878 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP    337 

and  assistant,  sided  with  Hayden  on  the  ground 
that  Hayden  was  the  better  man. 

Hayden  wrote  from  Washington,  March  13, 
1879,  that  he  had  learned  that  Whitney  had 
been  seriously  considered  for  the  position  "  as 
the  first  geologist  of  the  age,"  offered  his 
support  in  case  Whitney  were  a  candidate, 
and  expressed  his  desire  to  serve  under  him 
should  he  be  successful.  To  this  Whitney  an- 
swered :  — 

TO    FERDINAND   V.    HAYDEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  15,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR, —  Your  letter  of  the  thir- 
teenth was  duly  received.  It  was  not  exactly 
from  the  motives  you  suggest  that  I  declined 
to  endorse  King,  as  requested  by  his  friends, 
"as  being  the  best  man  in  the  United  States 
for  the  place."  King  has  been  my  friend  and 
pupil,  it  is  true;  but  you  have  worked  hard  and 
indefatigably,  and  I  did  not  feel  called  on  to 
put  myself  in  opposition  to  you.  I  remembered 
how  much  my  brother  (Professor  W.  D.  of 
Yale)  thought  of  you  and  your  work,  and  what 
a  good  report  he  brought  of  his  summer's 
campaign  with  your  party  [in  1873], 

Moreover,  I  did  not  wish  to  do  anything 
which  should  give  any  one  a  right  to  say  that 
I  myself  would  not  accept  the  place  if  it  were 


338        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

offered  to  me  in  such  a  way  that  I  should  have 
a  right  to  feel  that  competent  authority  had  ad- 
judged me  the  most  suitable  person  for  the 
place.  I  say  again,  what  I  said  two  months  ago 
to  King,  that  I  do  not  want  the  position,  and 
that  I  would  not  put  myself  forward  in  order  to 
obtain  it.  It  does  seem  to  me,  however,  that  it 
is  a  place  that  almost  any  working  geologist  in 
the  country  would  be  glad  to  have,  if  he  could 
get  it  on  the  square;  and  that  such  as  did  not 
want  it  might,  very  likely,  feel  it  a  duty  to  take 
it,  if  they  had  a  chance.  Remembering  how 
hard  you  have  worked  in  early  days,  and  under 
what  disadvantages  —  and  in  regard  to  this  I 
have  already  expressed  myself  most  clearly  in 
print — I  cannot  but  sympathize  with  you  in 
your  efforts  to  keep  possession  of  the  work  you 
have  managed  with  so  much  ability.  And  I 
may  add  that  I  have  felt  chagrined  at  the  at- 
tacks made  on  your  private  character  by  those 
[i.  e.  the  army  engineers]  who  were  seeking 
to  oust  you. 

If  you  succeed  in  getting  the  appointment, 
I  shall  be  one  of  the  first  to  congratulate  you, 
and  to  offer  you  a  lot  of  good  advice  as  to  the 
way  I  think  the  work  ought  to  be  done ;  and  I 
hope  you  will  not  blame  me  for  believing  that 
in  everything  there  is  always  room  for  improve- 
ment. What  I  would  particularly  urge  would 


STURGIS-HOOPER   PROFESSORSHIP     339 

be  that  the  geological  work  should  be  made 
more  practical. 

Very  truly  yours, 

J.  D.  WHITNEY. 

King  took  his  former  chief's  decision  in  good 
part.  "  I  do  not  doubt,"  he  wrote  at  once,  "  that 
your  reasons  are  sound  and  good.  ...  I  have 
no  blame  for  you  in  the  matter.  I  believe  you 
always  act  fearlessly  and  as  you  think  strictly 
right.  No  man  can  do  more."  Thereupon  King 
turned  the  tables  on  his  rival  by  getting  Brewer 
to  see  President  Hayes,  and  convince  him  that 
King  and  not  Hayden  had  been  the  heir  of 
Whitney's  topographical  method,  and  had  in- 
troduced it  into  the  Government  surveys.  So 
the  unpaid  volunteer  whom  Whitney  broke  in 
on  the  trip  to  Lassen's  Peak,  in  1863,  became 
in  1879,  in  spite  of  Whitney,  head  of  the 
United  States  Geological  Survey. 


CHAPTER   XIII 
THE  LAST  OF  THE  CALIFORNIA  REPORTS. 

1879    TO    1882 

WITH  the  spring  of  1879,  Mrs.  Whitney's 
health  was  so  far  restored  that  she  could  ven- 
ture once  more  on  a  journey,  not  this  time 
around  the  world,  but  to  the  familiar  ground  of 
Europe.  Some  account  of  this  trip  appears  in 
a  letter,  written  after  the  return  to  Cambridge. 

TO  F.  VON  RICHTHOFEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  9,  1880. 

MY  DEAR  BARON,  —  Your  favor  ...  is  just 
received  and  I  will  try  to  earn  again  the  title 
of  "faithful  correspondent,"  to  which  I  have 
certainly  not  maintained  any  claim  of  late.  On 
my  way  to  Europe  last  spring  I  was  taken  sick 
with  a  malarious  attack  (relic  of  the  Wisconsin 
Survey);  trying  to  make  it  out  to  be  nothing, 
I  kept  moving,  although  really  sick  and  un- 
able to  do  anything,  while  a  week  of  rest  and 
nursing  at  home  would  have  easily  cured  me. 
At  Vienna  I  was  still  only  able  to  get  about 
a  little.  I  did  get  your  letter,  and  saw  Hoch- 
stetter,  as  well  as  many  others  of  the  scientific 
men.  Of  Posepny  ["  the  only  one  besides  my- 


CALIFORNIA   REPORTS  341 

self  who  is  a  specialist  in  mineral  veins  "]  and 
Steindacher  —  both  of  whom  had  been  our 
guests  either  at  Cambridge  or  San  Francisco 
—  we  saw  a  good  deal ;  and  they  were  exceed- 
ingly kind  and  hospitable. 

The  great  event  at  Vienna  while  we  were 
there,  was  the  production  of  the  "  Niebelungen 
Ring,"  which  I  managed  to  sit  through  and 
enjoy,  by  dint  of  staying  in  bed  most  of  the 
daytime.  In  Trieste  I  was  sick  for  three  days ; 
in  Venice  I  began  to  feel  a  little  like  myself,  and 
after  six  weeks  in  the  Upper  Engadine,  was  all 
right  again,  although  it  was  fearfully  cold.  My 
wife  improved  in  health  all  the  time  we  were 
abroad,  and  my  daughter  gained  somewhat 
We  went  down  the  Rhine  and  passed  Bonn 
the  latter  part  of  August,  when  I  knew  that 
you  would  not  be  there. 

From  the  Rhine  we  went  to  Paris,  where 
we  stayed  some  time,  and  my  daughter  became 
engaged  (verlobt)  to  an  American  artist,  liv- 
ing for  the  time  at  Ecouen,  a  few  miles  away. 
He  is  the  son  of  a  prominent  and  wealthy 
man,  born  in  Massachusetts,  and  now  of  St. 
Louis,  name  Allen.  The  marriage  is  expected 
to  be  here  next  June,  and  the  young  couple  to 
return  to  Ecouen  in  the  Autumn.  I  ought  to 
have  written  you  from  Paris ;  my  excuse  must 
be  that  we  were  head  over  heels  in  excitement. 


342         JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

My  brother  (William)  and  all  his  family  were 
there;  and  previously  at  the  Axenstein  (on 
Lake  Lucerne)  we  gathered  ten  members  of 
our  family  around  the  table.  My  brother,  dur- 
ing the  year  he  was  abroad,  completed  and 
published,  in  English  and  in  German,  his  San- 
skrit grammar,  and  he  is  now  at  home  at  work 
on  his  long  since  promised  second  volume  of 
the  "  Atharva-Veda."  I  am  just  sending  to 
press  the  first  pages  of  the  concluding  part 
of  the  gravel  volume,  two  having  been  already 
published.  .  .  .  King  is  figuring  at  Washing- 
ton for  enormous  appropriations,  intending  to 
monopolize  the  geology  of  the  entire  country. 
Should  he  succeed,  I  shall  probably  abandon 
Californian  geological  work,  as  I  cannot  com- 
pete with  the  United  States.  I  have  a  large 
quantity  of  material  on  hand ;  but  it  won't  pay 
to  publish  it ;  there  will  be  no  sale,  as  all  the 
geology  of  the  country  will  be  distributed  from 
Washington  gratis. 

In  the  meantime  there  was  need  of  more 
facts  on  the  California  gravels,  and  Whitney 
sent  his  assistant,  William  Henry  Pettee,  into 
the  Sierra  Nevada;  while  another  assistant, 
Marshman  Edward  Wadsworth,  went  into  north- 
ern Michigan,  to  secure  ammunition  where- 
with to  repel  certain  new  attacks  on  the 


CALIFORNIA   REPORTS  343 

conclusion  of  Foster  and  Whitney's  old  Lake 
Superior  reports.  The  results  of  Wadsworth's 
work  appeared  in  1880  as  "  Notes  on  the  Geo- 
logy of  the  Iron  and  Copper  Districts  of  Lake 
Superior." 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  24,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  — .  .  .  Ice  on  the  brain 
is  the  trouble  with  me  at  present,  for  I  am 
in  a  very  inflamed  condition  on  the  so-called 
"  Great  Ice  Age,"  about  which  I  am  trying  to 
work  my  ideas  into  shape. 

My  fellow  graveler  has  returned  from  Cali- 
fornia, and  I  expect  him  here  in  a  few  days,  to 
go  on  with  writing  up  his  notes.  As  soon  as 
possible  thereafter,  I  shall  begin  printing  the 
final  part  of  the  gravel  volume.  Mr.  Wads- 
worth  is  going  over  the  whole  ground  of  our 
Lake  Superior  work  in  the  light  of  the  new 
lithological  methods,  having  spent  the  summer 
on  the  Lake.  I  hope  he  will  be  able  to  show  up 
the  iniquities  of  Sterry  Hunt  &  Co.  and  rub  up 
the  tarnished  glory  of  F.  &  W.,  till  the  old 
pewter  plates  shine  as  good  as  new.  I  feel  the 
greatest  confidence  that  we  were  right  on  every 
one  of  our  main  points. 

King's  operations  are  becoming  a  source  of 
a  good  deal  of  interest  to  some  geologists,  in- 


344         JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

eluding  your  humble  servant.  I  hope  you  read 
Dana's  article  on  the  subject  in  the  last  A.  J.  S. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  13,  1880. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  —  I  believe  I  never  was  so 
driven  as  I  am  this  winter.  The  devil  (printer's) 
is  after  me  every  day  to  the  tune  of  three  quarto 
pages  of  proof  and  three  of  revise  —  besides 
lecturing  and  looking  after  all  the  odds  and 
ends  of  Pettee's  and  Wadsworth's  work,  etc. 
When  you  come  on,  I  mean  to  take  a  vacation. 
Before  that  time,  I  mean  to  have  the  most  diffi- 
cult part  of  my  present  work  in  type  and  can 
rest  before  beginning  on  the  remainder.  Dress- 
goods,  outfits,  and  the  wedding  [of  his  daugh- 
ter] are  the  prominent  topics  discussed  in  the 
house  outside  my  sanctum. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

May  9,  1880. 

I  send  the  "  Climatic  Changes,"  and  is  n't 
this  one  of  them?  And  aren't  you  glad  you  are 
back  home  and  haven't  got  to  go  to  Solomon's 
to-night;  and  uberhaupt,  what  is  the  world 
coming  to  with  the  mercury  at  91°  early  in  May, 
and  is  it  the  sun-spots,  after  all  ?  Dies  irae,  dies 
ilia,  solvet  saeclum  infavilla,  —  no  wonder  Sy- 
billa  was  testy  about  it ! 


CALIFORNIA  REPORTS  345 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  July  3,  1880. 

...  I  did  arrive  just  in  time  to  welcome  — 
several  batches  of  proof-sheets  and  maps,  and 
to  give  my  blessing  (?)  to  [Sereno]  Watson, 
who  starts  for  the  far  West  to-day  .  .  .  leaving 
the  Botany  for  me  to  finish  up  and  publish.  I 
also  learned  on  my  arrival  that  Pettee,  whom  I 
had  counted  on  for  a  month's  help  in  July,  was 
about  to  fail  me,  having  had  a  "  loud  call  "  to  go 
to  Colorado  for  the  summer.  So  here  I  am  tied 
down,  for  six  weeks  at  least.  If  I  can  get  a 
couple  of  days  ahead  of  the  printer,  I  will  surely 
run  up  and  get  a  breath  of  (Horse)  mountain 
air.  .  .  . 

This  weather  will,  I  fear,  cast  a  damper  on 
the  bridal  pair.  .  .  .  Let  us  hope  that  the  rain 
will  last  long  enough  to  put  out  the  fire- 
crackers and  the  small  boys  of  the  Fourth. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  6,  1880. 

Yours  of  the  fourth  from  Bethlehem — after 
which  you  could  not  properly  write  "jewed 
here,"  to  judge  from  the  price  you  pay  for  a 
letter-box  —  has  arrived.  As  now  is  a  good  op- 
portunity to  read  up  what  you  otherwise  might 
neglect,  I  send  you  Wadsworth's  article  on  Lake 


346        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Superior.  I  don't  feel  so  much  the  necessity  of 
going  there  as  I  did,  as  you  will  naturally  infer 
when  you  have  read  the  article.  Still  I  would 
like  to  have  another  look  at  the  country,  and  to 
strike  a  few  stronger  blows  in  favor  of  the  old 
firm  of  F.  &  W.  to  rivet  the  bolts  that  Wads- 
worth  has  stuck  in.  Seems  to  me  that  meta- 
phor is  getting  a  little  mixed.  It  is  all  owing  to 
my  having  just  been  writing  about  a  steam 
boiler  carried  down  a  ravine  by  a  cloud-bust  in 
California. 

I  shan't  make  any  plans  for  travel  until  the 
gr.  vol.  is  done.  Botany  II  goes  on  to  the  press 
next  week,  as  well  as  a  second  edition  of  I.  Then 
the  "  Gravels  "  will  be  ready  to  follow. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  8,  1880. 

.  .  .  The  last  page  of  my  works  —  at  present 
to  be  printed  — left  the  press  to-day.  All  will 
be  in  the  binder's  hands  by  Wednesday  next. 
My  edition  is  differently  put  together  from 
that  of  the  Museum,  and  will  form  two  quarto 
volumes  of  about  equal  size,  of  which  only  one 
appears  now,  entirely  devoted  to  the  gravels. 
The  other  contains  the  fossil  plants  and  the 
"  Climatic  Changes."  Only  the  Museum  copies 
of  Part  I  of  "  Climatic  Changes  "  are  now  to  be 
issued. 


CALIFORNIA   REPORTS  347 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  31,  1880. 

.  .  .  Our  recess  ends  on  Monday  and  I  be- 
gin lecturing  that  day.  I  have  two  courses  now: 
one  on  dynamical,  and  the  other  on  economical 
geology.  Both  take  much  time  in  the  way  of 
preparing  diagrams,  etc.  I  expect  soon  to 
begin  putting  the  second  part  of  "  Climatic 
Changes "  in  type.  The  work  on  the  birds 
("Water  Birds  of  North  America")  is  now 
fairly  begun,  the  cuts  being  all  done  and  deliv- 
ered, as  well  as  the  MS.,  520  odd  cuts  and  a  pile 
of  MS.  three  feet  high. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  30,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  — The  Mirza  Johann  Ar- 
senias,  a  Persian,  .  .  .  called  yesterday  .  .  .  and 
seemed  to  have  a  good  deal  confused  me  with 
you,  as  you  are  aware  others  have  done  before 
him.  He  wants  to  teach  Syriac  and  Turkish, 
and  seemed  to  be  desirous,  when  he  found  out 
that  W.  D.  and  J.  D.  were  two  distinct  entities, 
of  having  me  write  to  you  and  ask  if  he  might 
perhaps  get  any  pupils  in  New  Haven,  he  hav- 
ing an  idea  that  he  might  divide  his  valuable 
services  between  the  two  institutions  to  which 
we  respectively  (and  respectably,  I  trust)  belong. 


348        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Do  you  need  any  Syriac  at  your  place?  This 
man  with  the  poisonous  name  has  lived  in 
Constantinople,  St.  Petersburg,  and  London, 
and  at  each  place  done  translating  work  for 
some  governmental  concern. 

I  sent  on  A.  Gr.  and  Bot.  II  this  morning. 
Tell  Brewer,  if  you  see  him,  that  I  don't  feel 
very  happy  at  Eaton's  having  omitted  all  no- 
tice of  the  California  Geological  Survey  in 
connection  with  his  praise  of  the  Botany  — 
which  one  would  imagine,  from  the  way  Eaton 
puts  it,  had  grown  to  maturity  without  any 
connection  with  the  Geological  Survey  or  with 
your  humble  servant,  who  took  the  risk  and 
advanced  a  large  part  of  the  needed  money, 
paying  Watson  and  Gray  respectively  for  their 
work,  and  doing  most  of  the  drudgery  himself 
without  remuneration. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

INNSBRUCK,  July  i,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  — This  is  to  certify  that 
we  are  alive  and  well  and  so  far  on  our  travels. 
We  went  directly  from  Paris  to  Turin,  thence 
to  Genoa,  Florence,  Bologna,  Venice,  Villach, 
Toblach,  Cortina  d'  Ampezzo,  and  Innsbruck, 
having  been  just  about  a  month  on  the  round. 
From  here  to  the  Salzkammergut,  thence  to 
Munich,  and  to  join  Eleanor  ...  at  Ecouen 


CALIFORNIA   REPORTS  349 

[where  the  Aliens  made  their  home]  August 
first  for  a  month  more  somewhere.  We  sail  from 
Liverpool  for  Boston,  September  fourteenth. 
.  .  .  Louisa  is  well  and  enjoying  the  journey 
very  much.  .  .  . 

Nothing  has  been  heard  directly  from  you 
as  yet;  but  the  papers  inform  us  that  you  were 
at  the  Greek  play  at  Harvard.  They  omit  to 
say  how  you  enjoyed  it.  According  to  Pettee's 
account  it  was  a  great  success.  .  .  . 

Travel  has  hardly  begun  yet  in  these  parts, 
so  that  we  can  have  all  the  accommodations 
we  need  without  scrambling  for  them.  I  never 
knew  before  how  beautiful  Italy  is  in  summer, 
that  is,  in  the  beginning  of  summer.  The  Dolo- 
mites I  revisited  after  an  absence  of  nearly  forty 
years.  They  are  still  there !  And  grander  than 
ever. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

LEIPZIG,  July  23,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  WILLIAM,  — ...  The  glaciers  are 
"  going,  going,  gone  "  in  the  parts  of  the  Alps 
where  I  have  been  this  year.  The  Ortler  Spitz 
looks  very  different  from  what  it  did  forty  years 
ago,  as  I  can  testify,  and  I  have  secured  some 
fine  photographs  which  show  the  thing  in  great 
perfection.  ...  I  have  put  in  a  few  "good 
licks "  in  the  geological  way,  and  got  some 


350        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

valuable  documents  and  information,  as  well 
as  a  few  fine  photographs.  One  place  we  have 
visited  this  time  which  was  new  to  me,  Ratis- 
bon.  The  "  Walhalla"  is  most  superb  !  and  the 
Cathedral  not  to  be  sneezed  at. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  2.,  1881. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., — We  arrived  on  Wednes- 
day .  .  .  and  in  good  health  and  spirits  after  a 
very  rough  and  disagreeable  trip.  .  .  . 

Of  course  there  is  the  usual  mountain  of  work 
to  be  climbed,  although  I  have  as  yet  done 
nothing  but  run  round  and  attend  to  miscel- 
laneous business.  The  principal  task  of  the 
coming  year  will  be  to  finish  the  "  Climatic 
Changes."  An  elaborate  paper  on  another  sub- 
ject has  been  in  hand  for  a  year  or  more,  and 
will  probably  be  published  this  year  as  a  joint 
Arbeit  of  Wadsworth  and  myself.  ...  Of  lec- 
turing I  shall  have  little  to  do  this  year.  Last 
year  I  devoted  almost  entirely  to  it.  When  I  do 
resume  lectures,  I  shall  give  the  second  part 
of  my  course  on  dynamic  geology,  or  that  re- 
lating to  volcanicity  and  mountain  building  — 
say  fifty  lectures  —  for  which,  however,  a  large 
amount  of  work,  as  preparatory,  will  have  to  be 
done,  both  in  study  and  in  preparation  of  dia- 
grams. When  this  is  done,  I  shall  have  the 


CALIFORNIA   REPORTS  351 

"stock  and  fixtures"  of  two  courses  of  lectures 
— say  two  hundred  in  all. 

When  shall  we  meet  again  ?  I  do  not  foresee 
being  called  to  New  York  this  year,  but  mean 
to  go  to  Northampton  soon.  Could  n't  you 
come  up  and  spend  a  day  at  Northampton  ? 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  12,  1882. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.,  —  Since  you  were  so  kind 
as  to  say  that  you  would  read  over  the  electro- 
typed  pages  of  the  "  Climatic  Changes  "II  be- 
fore the  printing  was  done,  I  now  send  on  a 
package,  by  express,  containing  all  the  remain- 
der of  chapter  two  and  all  of  chapter  three  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  fifteen  pages  not  yet  all  in  type. 
I  have  decided  to  issue  this  at  once,  leaving 
chapter  four,  which  forms  —  so  to  speak  —  a 
distinct  division  of  the  work,  to  follow  about 
three  or  four  months  later.  People  are  beginning 
to  edge  over  on  to  my  ground,  and  I  would  like 
to  secure  as  much  priority  as  possible  for  my 
ideas ;  besides  I  shall  not  feel  so  much  hurried 
with  chapter  four  if  this  on  hand  is  issued. 

I  flatter  myself  that  reading  this  stuff  I  send 
you  will  be  rather  easy,  and  hope  that  I  may 
hear  that  you  even  smole  a  smile  occasionally, 
in  perusing  it.  No  one  has  read  it  except  Mr. 
[Alexander]  Agassiz,  who  was  kind  enough 


352        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

to  express  high  approval ;  but  I  want  from  you 
some  criticism,  and  especially  of  any  slips  in 
style,  which  may  have  escaped  my  notice,  and 
which  it  may  be  worth  while  to  correct  —  at 
60  cents  an  hour  ! 

The  letter,  or  perhaps  the  telegram,  to  which 
the  following  is  a  reply  is  no  longer  extant: 
its  nature,  however,  is  not  hard  to  guess.  Rev. 
Nathan  Birdseye  is  a  maternal  great-great- 
grandfather who  preached  his  last  sermon  a 
year  or  two  before  his  death  at  one  hundred 
and  three. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  24,  1882. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., — The  aged  grandfather 
totters  to  his  writing-table  to  address  you  a  line 
of  thanks  for  your  congratulations.  I  always 
felt  curious  to  know  how  Nathan  Birdseye  felt 
as  he  drew  toward  the  eighties  after  his  gradua- 
tion ;  now  I  know  how  it  is  myself.  We  have 
as  yet  only  the  bare  cable  message,  and  await 
the  details  of  the  great  event  with  no  little 
anxiety.  The  "  hen  with  one  chicken,"  you  will 
naturally  exclaim.  When  we  hear  farther  we 
will  communicate  the  news  to  you ;  meantime 
we  trust  that  la  petite  Fran$aise  is  all  right,  as 
well  as  Madame  la  Mere. 


CALIFORNIA  REPORTS  353 


TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  10,  1882. 

MY  DEAR  WILL,  —  When  one  has  bad  news 
to  communicate,  it  is  best  to  plunge  in  at  once. 
This  has  been  a  week  of  heavy  trouble.  Louisa 
was  operated  on,  Tuesday,  for  strangulated 
hernia.  The  doctor  will  give  no  satisfactory 
assurance  that  she  will  recover;  although  to 
me,  knowing  her  constitution  so  well,  her 
symptoms  do  not  seem  so  very  unfavorable. 

Tom  telegraphed  on  the  very  day  after  the 
operation,  that  Eleanor  was  dangerously  ill 
from  the  results  of  an  abscess.  Another  tele- 
gram yesterday  was  not  favorable;  indeed  it 
was  very  much  the  other  way. 

TO    F.    VON    RICHTHOFEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  9,  1882. 

MY  DEAR  BARON, —  Your  letters  of  May  tenth 
and  twentieth  were  duly  received,  that  of  latter 
date  this  day.  The  card  which  was  sent  you  some 
three  weeks  ago  has,  no  doubt,  reached  you, 
and  told  you  how  at  one  blow  I  was  left  alone 
in  the  world.  You  saw  enough  of  us  in  Cali- 
fornia to  know  how  happily  we  lived  together 
—  my  wife,  my  only  child,  and  I.  In  1874  we 
again  met  you  in  Berlin,  my  wife  then  a  sad 
invalid,  my  daughter  a  blooming  girl  of  seven- 


354        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

teen,  whom  we  had  left  at  Hannover,  that  she 
might  learn  to  love  Germany  and  German  ways 
— which  she  did,  becoming  a  child  of  the  house, 
in  the  family  of  dear  friends  there.  When  we 
left  Europe  to  return,  in  1874,  I  fully  believed 
that  my  wife  had  but  few  weeks  to  live ;  and 
she  thought  only  of  reaching  home,  so  that  she 
might  die  among  friends,  and  in  her  own  coun- 
try. But  after  months  of  suffering,  during  which 
she  wrote  two  volumes  (which  were  afterwards 
published  for  distribution  among  her  friends), 
she  rallied,  and  for  most  of  the  time  after  that, 
seemed  to  enjoy  a  tolerable  measure  of  health. 
In  1879  we  again  went  to  Europe,  but  did  not 
see  you.  Most  of  that  summer  we  spent  in 
the  Engadine,  my  daughter  not  being  strong, 
although  well  enough  to  enjoy  life.  The  next 
year  she  was  married  to  a  man,  whom  we  all 
soon  learned  to  love,  a  young  artist,  son  of  a 
very  noble  and  influential  man,  Thomas  Allen 
of  St.  Louis,  one  of  the  finest  types  of  an 
American.  In  the  autumn  of  1880,  my  daugh- 
ter and  her  husband  returned  to  Europe  and 
took  up  their  residence  at  Ecouen,  near  Paris, 
a  favorite  resort  of  landscape  painters.  Here 
last  summer,  just  a  year  ago,  we  found  them 
living  in  idyllic  happiness,  every  possible  bless- 
ing seeming  to  have  been  showered  upon  them'. 
Together  we  visited  the  Channel  Islands,  where 


CALIFORNIA  REPORTS  355 

they  spent  July  and  August ;  and  thence  went 
to  London,  where  mother  and  daughter  parted, 
never  again  to  meet  in  this  world.  .  .  . 

June  eighth,  however,  my  wife  was  seized  with 
a  sudden  and  violent  illness,  which  proved  to  be 
the  result  of  a  strangulated  hernia.  She  was 
operated  on  for  it  at  once ;  but  sank  away  after 
the  operation,  and  died  on  the  thirteenth,  with- 
out having  suffered  much  pain  or  having  had 
any  clear  idea  that  her  end  was  so  near.  The 
day  after  the  operation,  came  a  telegram  that 
my  daughter  was  in  the  greatest  danger ;  and 
she,  dear,  lovely  girl,  followed  her  mother  only 
a  few  hours  later — neither  having  known  any- 
thing of  the  other's  condition.  Only  two  days 
before  her  death,  my  wife  told  the  doctor  how 
happy  she  was  in  feeling  that  Eleanor  had 
everything  that  could  be  asked  for,  and  that 
her  cup  of  happiness  was  full  to  overflowing. 

My  wife  was  buried  at  Northampton  —  one 
of  the  loveliest  spots  in  the  world  —  where 
Eleanor  and  I  were  born ;  and  there  the  dear 
child  will  be  laid  to  rest,  beside  her  mother, 
probably  on  the  second  anniversary  of  her  mar- 
riage. And  I  am  alone  —  nothing  left  of  my 
own  family  but  a  little  granddaughter,  six  weeks 
old.  ...  In  about  a  week  they  will  start  to 
bring  back  the  living  child  and  the  dead  mother. 
Such  is  my  sad  story.  I  have  told  it  to  you  in 


356        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

brief,  because  I  felt  that  you  saw  enough  of  us 
in  our  happiness  in  California,  to  wish  to  know 
something  of  me  in  my  sorrows.  .  .  . 

TO   F.    VON    RICHTHOFEN 

CAMBRIDGE,  June  21, 1882. 

MY  DEAR  BARON,  —  I  thank  you  most  sin- 
cerely for  your  kind  and  sympathising  letter  of 
the  third,  just  received.  A  few  days  ago  I  did 
write  you  something  of  myself  and  my  sorrows. 
My  son-in-law,  Mr.  Allen,  is  now  on  his  way 
home  with  the  baby  and  all  that  is  left  of  his 
dear  wife  and  my  beloved  daughter,  of  whom, 
as  you  say,  I  was  so  proud.  I  shall  wait  with 
anxiety  to  know  where  he  intends  to  live  and 
what  he  means  to  do,  before  making  any  change 
myself.  In  the  meantime,  I  am  trying  to  finish 
the  "  Climatic  Changes,"  of  which  about  a  hun- 
dred pages  remain  to  be  put  in  type.  As  my 
strength  may  not  hold  out  to  do  it,  or  as  delay 
may  arise,  I  send  you  by  mail  a  copy  of  the 
work,  so  far  as  completed.  You  will  see  from 
the  circular  enclosed,  what  my  plans  are;  or 
rather  what  they  were  at  the  beginning  of  last 
month,  when  everything  looked  so  bright  to  me. 

Please  present  my  sincerest  regards  to  your 
wife  and  thank  her  for  her  expressions  of  sym- 
pathy and  accept  the  same  for  yourself,  from 
your  very  sincere  friend,  J.  D.  WHITNEY. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY 

WHITNEY  had  always  been  a  solitary  man,  who 
found  his  happiness  in  his  family  and  in  his 
work,  rather  than  in  his  friends.  For  several 
years  after  his  great  sorrow  he  lived  in  retire- 
ment, and  from  this  seclusion  he  slowly  and 
only  partly  emerged.  In  time,  nevertheless,  his 
wonted  cheerfulness  came  back;  if  he  was  not 
happy,  he  was  at  least  content. 

Whitney  was  now,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  established  in  a  permanent  abiding  place 
under  his  own  roof.  In  1885,  he  gave  up  the 
dwelling  on  Oxford  Street,  which  for  fifteen 
years  he  had  rented  of  B.  A.  Gould ;  and  bought 
No.  2  Divinity  Avenue,  on  the  same  street  with 
the  Agassiz  Museum,  and  only  a  hundred  or 
two  yards  away.  It  is  a  dignified  old  house,  and 
the  library,  which  takes  up  the  entire  street 
front,  is  counted  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
rooms  in  Cambridge.  This  house  soon  became 
the  family  centre,  in  place  of  Northampton ; 
for  J.D.Whitney,  senior,  had  died  in  1869  and 
his  wife  in  1876,  and  the  sons  and  daughters 
were  resorting  less  and  less  to  their  old  home. 

But  though  sisters  and  nieces  made  long  visits 


358        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

and  filled  in  some  measure  the  place  of  wife 
and  daughter,  the  Sturgis-Hooper  Professor  of 
Geology  remained  his  own  housekeeper.  His 
is  by  no  means  the  only  case  in  which  a  success- 
ful administrator  has  taken  on  the  care  of  a 
household,  and  found  the  task  easy  to  his  prac- 
ticed hand.  Mrs.  Whitney's  uncertain  health 
had  from  the  first  made  her  husband  familiar 
with  domestic  matters ;  a  lifelong  interest  in  all 
beautiful  things  had  given  him  a  discriminat- 
ing taste  in  household  furniture,  and  he  took 
a  real  pride  in  his  "  new  old  "  house.  His  home- 
making  methods  were  characteristic.  He  picked 
his  maids  carefully,  paid  them  well,  worked 
them  lightly,  judged  them  by  results,  specified 
that  they  should  be  called  Mary  for  the  con- 
venience of  Mrs.  Whitney's  parrot,  and  kept 
them  for  years.  Every  day  he  walked  to  Har- 
vard Square  and  did  his  marketing. 

His  beloved  books  came  also  to  rest,  the  less 
technical  portion  at  his  house,  the  working  li- 
brary in  two  ample  rooms  in  the  Museum  build- 
ing, where  it  still  remains,  the  property  of  the 
University.  Here,  after  1882,  was  his  work- 
room, on  the  second  floor,  in  the  sunny  corner 
of  the  north  wing,  where  he  could  look  out 
across  the  quadrangle  to  the  Divinity  School 
and  his  own  house. 

The  life  of  a  university  professor,  long  estab- 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       359 

lished  in  his  chair,  is  apt  to  be  an  uneventful  one, 
happy  indeed  if  it  has  no  history.  For  Whit- 
ney it  was  a  life  of  steady  and  pleasant  toil, 
diversified  by  daily  walks  about  Cambridge  or 
into  the  country,  and  by  summers  spent  with 
his  relatives,  usually  at  Lake  Placid  in  the  Adi- 
rondacks,  on  the  South  Shore  of  Long  Island, 
or  at  Lake  Sunapee,  New  Hampshire. 

One  special  solace  he  had  during  the  com- 
parative leisure  of  his  later  years  —  his  love  for 
music.  Several  of  his  nieces  were  skilled  mu- 
sicians ;  and  during  their  long  visits  especially, 
there  was  much  musical  company.  He  played 
no  more  on  any  of  the  eight  musical  instruments 
of  his  youth,  but  he  had  made  to  order  the  best 
piano  that  could  be  built,  and  he  belonged  to 
a  small  club  of  musically  minded  people,  who 
imported  new  music,  and  met  regularly  to  study 
the  works  of  new  composers.  His  special  joy 
was  the  concerts  of  the  Boston  Symphony  Or- 
chestra. For  these  he  had  always  two  tickets ; 
and  he  was  accustomed  to  secure  the  programs 
in  advance,  and  to  send  to  Europe  for  the 
scores  of  unfamiliar  works.  Thus  his  musical 
library  became  in  time  no  less  remarkable  than 
his  other  collections  of  books.  It  is  related 
that  Professor  Paine,  head  of  the  department 
of  music  in  the  University,  once  called  on  the 
professor  of  geology  to  see  whether,  by  any 


360        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

chance,  Whitney  possessed  a  certain  musical 
work  not  owned  by  the  college  library ;  and 
when  this  was  promptly  brought  forth,  prof- 
fered with  equal  success  a  second  and  then  a 
third  like  request. 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September  16,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  We  returned  from 
our  little  trip  to  the  White  Mountains  on  Friday, 
having  been  immensely  favored  by  the  weather, 
during  all  the  nine  days  of  our  absence.  It  was 
cool  enough  to  make  walking  a  pleasure,  and  a 
fire  in  the  house  a  comfort.  It  always  rained  a 
little  just  before  we  had  to  ride  in  any  direction, 
so  as  to  lay  the  dust;  and  —  greatest  favor  of  all 
by  far  —  we  had  an  exhibition  of  the  "frost- 
work phenomenon,"  or  frost  feathers,  as  some 
call  it,  gotten  up  on  Mt.  Washington  for  our 
special  benefit.  I  was  quite  unaware  that  it  had 
ever  been  seen  in  summer;  or  rather,  at  any 
time  except  midwinter,  and  could  not  find  out 
from  any  one  on  the  summit,  that  it  ever  had 
been.  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  country,  as- 
cended Kearsage,  Mt.  Washington,  Sugar  Hill, 
and  Bald  Mountain — points  just  suited  to  give 
me  an  idea  of  the  glacial  conditions.  Never  was 
a  greater  absurdity  broached,  than  that  Mt. 
Washington  has  been  passed  over  by  an  ice- 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       361 

sheet.  I  could  not  find  anywhere  in  the  White 
Mountains  any  proofs  of  anything  other  than 
local  glaciation,  and  not  much  of  that.  I  also 
examined  the  "  Flume,"  through  which  the 
"avalanche"  went  last  June,  and  saw  that  the 
famous  "boulder,"  which  had  been  put  up  in  the 
Flume  by  ice,  according  to  the  glacialists,  had 
been  carried  away  by  water,  and  carried  a  thou- 
sand feet,  although  more  than  10  feet  long. 
Also  other  things  too  numerous  to  mention. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September  19,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  In  regard  to  Brother 
B.'s  dictum  touching  the  "Continental  Ice 
Sheet,"  I  think  that  he  will  find  that  he  does 
not  know  as  much  about  it  as  he  thinks  he 
does,  when  he  reads  Vol.  IV  of  the  "Contri- 
butions to  American  Geology."  (Volume  III 
is  well  under  way  now.)  I  have  studied  the 
subject  more  thoroughly  than  he  has,  and 
have  had  better  opportunities  than  any  one  — 
so  far  as  I  can  judge — for  observing.  I  have 
studied  every  glaciated  region  of  importance, 
except  the  polar,  over  and  over  again. 

The  only  professional  geologist  who  has 
ever  visited  Greenland,  Laube,  writes  me  that 
my  views  entirely  coincide  with  his.  Nordens- 
kjold  has  just  discovered — what  I  published 


362        JOSIAH    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

two  years  ago  —  that  Greenland  is  much  less 
accessible  than  it  was  five  or  six  hundred 
years  ago.  Richthofen,  now  Professor  of  Phys- 
ical Geology  in  Peschel's  place  at  Leipzig, 
writes  that  although  my  views  are  hard  to 
swallow,  yet  he  does  not  see  how  the  evidence 
I  offer  can  be  overcome,  etc.  As  for  Mt. 
Washington,  I  can  bring  positive  evidence 
that  no  ice-sheet  ever  passed  over  that  point. 
It  is  very  likely  that  I  shall,  before  long,  issue 
a  sort  of  forerunner  of  my  glacial  ideas.  .  .  . 
All  I  claim  at  present  is  that  I  know  very 
little  about  the  causes  and  conditions  of  the 
glacial  phenomena  in  northeastern  North 
America;  while  lots  of  young  fellows,  who 
never  saw  a  glacier  in  their  lives,  "  know  all 
about  it" — as  the  servants  in  Goodwin's 
kitchen  about  God. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY      , 

CAMBRIDGE,  October  7,  1884. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  I  am  glad  that  you 
think  that  we  have  been  temperate  in  the  tone 
of  our  "  Azoic  System."  Nobody  can  tell  what 
an  amount  of  work  on  my  part  and  on  that  of 
Mr.  Wadsworth  has  been  put  into  that  volume. 
Time  will  settle  the  question  whether  we  are 
right  or  not;  if  we  are,  we  deserve  some  credit, 
I  think.  Dana  hates  to  give  up  his  name 


THE   CENTURY  DICTIONARY       363 

Archaean,  but  he  has  to  admit  that  we  have 
settled  the  question  of  the  subdivisions  of  the 
Azoic  or  Archaean.  Quite  a  number  of  the 
younger  geologists  have  written,  expressing 
adherence  to  our  views.  We  do  not  expect 
much  from  the  older  ones.  ... 

C.  A.  White  of  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey  was  here  to-day,  just  back  from  Cali- 
fornia, where  he  has  been  going  over  my 
ground,  with  my  books  in  his  hand.  He  was 
gracious  enough  to  admit  that  he  had  not 
been  able  to  find  that  we  had  not  done  our 
work  well.  In  fact,  he  expressed  surprise  that 
we  had  been  able  to  accomplish  so  much. 

Benjamin  E.  Smith  was  managing  editor  of 
the  Century  Dictionary  and  William  Whit- 
ney its  editor-in-chief.  By  1883,  the  original 
project  for  a  revision  of  the  old  Imperial 
had  grown  into  the  plan  for  the  great  work 
which  finally  appeared  in  1889.  Not  unnatu- 
rally, the  chief  editor  turned  to  his  brother  for 
assistance  with  the  mining  terms. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  15,  1883. 

DEAR  W.  D.  W.,—  .  .  .  As  for  the  diction- 
ary work,  it  is  astonishing  with  what  skill 
the  mining  words  are  defined  in  the  Imperial 


364        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

Dictionary.  I  mean,  skill  in  missing  the  point. 
If  I  am  to  do  the  mining  terms,  I  must  have 
the  metallurgical  and  geological,  for  they  can- 
not be  separate.  In  the  selection  of  words  in- 
cluded under  mining,  the  Imperial  is  as  bad 
as  or  worse  than  any  other  dictionary  —  there 
has  been  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  about  it. 
It  is  evidently  the  work  of  one  entirely  un- 
acquainted with  the  subject,  as  I  feel  sure  I 
could  demonstrate,  if  you  won't  take  my  word 
for  it.  Many  important  words  are  omitted,  and 
some  introduced  which  are  defunct  and  have 
been  for  centuries — if  ever  alive.  What  shall 
I  do? 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  16,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  I  am  sorry  that  you 
did  not  tell  me  at  first,  that  the  subjects  of 
geology,  mineralogy,  and  metallurgy  had  been 
assigned.  .  .  .  Had  I  known  this,  I  should 
never  have  dreamed  of  offering  to  undertake 
the  mining  terms.  .  .  .  Anyway  I  could  not 
do  justice  to  the  subject  without  a  great  deal 
of  labor  and  some  space  to  display  the  results. 
A  separate  polyglot  work,  embracing  geolo- 
gical, mining,  ore-dressing,  and  metallurgical 
terms,  is  what  is  needed,  and  the  especial  in- 
terest would  be  in  tracing  the  history  of  the 
mining  art  in  its  progress  from  one  country  to 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       365 

another.  In  no  dictionary  that  I  have  exam- 
ined, has  there  been  any  evidence  found  that 
the  author  of  the  definitions  of  the  mining 
terms  has  had  any  practical  acquaintance  with 
the  subject. 

The  Imperial  illustrates  this  statement 
better  than  any  dictionary  I  have  met  with.  I 
cannot  understand  why  there  should  be  this 
fatality  with  regard  to  the  mining  words  es- 
pecially. 

William  Whitney's  solution  of  the  difficulty 
was  simple  enough:  Josiah  kept  the  mining 
terms,  and  became  responsible  in  addition  for 
metals  and  metallurgy,  lithology,  geology,  phy- 
sical geography,  and  for  want  of  a  better  man, 
of  fossil  botany  besides.  It  was  largely  a  labor 
of  love  on  his  part,  for  he  took  vastly  more 
pains  than  he  was  paid  for,  sent  abroad  at  his 
own  expense  for  books  to  prove  usage,  and  in 
addition  to  his  own  work,  kept  an  eye  on  all 
the  scientific  definitions,  and  revised  the  entire 
proof.  A  by-product  of  this  labor  was  "  Names 
and  Places,"  which  appeared  in  limited  edition 
in  1888,  a  curious  little  book  full  of  strange 
lore  concerning  the  terms  of  geography. 

In  the  meanwhile,  Whitney  kept  on  with 
his  geological  publications  and  his  teaching. 


366        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  25,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,—  .  .  .  The  sail  to 
Rockland,  where  we  only  stopped  five  minutes, 
and  from  there  to  Boston,  was  still,  calm,  and 
comfortable,  and  the  sunrise,  as  we  approached 
Boston  Harbor  and  all  the  Smiths  (i.  e.  genus 
humanum)  of  Boston,  was  lovely.  I  never 
sailed  up  the  harbor  before  under  favorable 
circumstances,  and  hardly  ever  before  was  in 
the  business  part  of  the  city  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing. It  was  a  curious  sensation.  I  should  men- 
tion that  we  arrived  at  seven  o'clock  exactly. 
On  the  boat  I  picked  up  a  piece  of  a  Bar 
Harbor  newspaper,  in  which  it  was  stated  that 
the  Island  of  Mount  Desert  was  named  in 
honor  of  De  Mons,  a  French  officer.  I  knew 
this  was  absurd,  and  so  looked  up  the  name  in 
Champlain,  and  here  copy  what  he  says  of  it 
in  the  edition  of  1632.  (The  earlier  one  has 
nearly  the  same  thing  in  a  little  more  antique 
spelling.)  ".  .  .  Je  1'ay  nommee  1'isle  des  Monts- 
deserts"  (island  of  the  barren  mountains,  or 
barren-mountain  island — for  "desert"  really 
means  a  mixture  of  barren  and  uninhabited, 
or  that  which  is  uninhabited  because  it  is 
barren).  You  see  that  the  theories  that  the 
mountains  have  been  laid  bare  by  fire,  will 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       367 

not  hold  water,  —  that  is,  unless  it  was  done 
before  1607.  .  .  . 

This  rain  is  splendid  for  washing  off  new 
paint!  It  will  clear  the  outside  of  my  house  off 
as  slick  as  a  whistle. 

must 

Them  peaches  win    not  be  forgotten! 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  28,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  I  have  received  a 
package  addressed  in  the  most  legible  manner: 
"  Professor  C.  D.  Whitney 

Yale  College 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A." 
Is  it  for  you,  or  me,  or  for  neither  of  us? 
P.  S.  On  opening  the  same,  at  a  venture,  I 
found  it  to  be  a  German-English  grammar,  by 
one  Meissner,  evidently  intended  for  me,  since 
to  send  a  German  grammar  to  you,  would  be 
expressing  coals  to  Newcastle.  However,  if 
you  desire  it,  you  can  have  it  for  fifteen  cents, 
the  amount  U.  S.  demanded  of  me,  in  the 
way  of  duty.  Should  this  grammar  fall  into 
your  hands,  I  would  like  you  to  read  an  exer- 
cise on  "Climate,"  near  the  end,  as  a  remark- 
able specimen  of  the  kind  of  stuff  in  common 
circulation  and  believed  in  by  many,  in  refer- 
ence to  historic  changes  of  climate. 


368        JOSIAH    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  27,  1887. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  Will  you  give  in- 
structions to  B.  E.  Smith  that  my  definition 
of  the  word  Archaean  be  put  in  the  place  of 
that  in  the  C.  D.  (see  galley-slip  enclosed)?  I 
have  written  it  with  care,  following  very  closely 
A.  Geikie,  and  sacrificing  myself,  inasmuch  as 
I  have  admitted  that  Dana's  name  has  in  gen- 
eral use  replaced  mine.  Not  that  I  believe  at  all 
that  his  is  philosophically  correct,  since  I  feel 
sure  that,  in  the  future,  they  will  come  back 
to  mine  (i.  e.  F.  &  W.'s).  Furthermore:  I  will 
now  say,  once  for  all,  that  I  will  do  no  more 
work  on  the  C.  D.,  until  I  receive  assurance 
that  my  definitions  will  not  be  tinkered,  and 
that  alterations  will  not  be  made  in  them  with- 
out my  consent,  and  that  all  words  of  which 
my  definitions  form  an  important  part  shall  be 
submitted  to  me  for  approval,  before  being  put 
in  type.  Only  on  these  conditions,  which  are 
substantially  those  which  I  was  originally  given 
to  understand  would  be  those  prevailing  with 
the  experts,  will  I  proceed  with  the  work,  which 
is  one  of  great  labor,  and  one  from  which  I 
shall  get  only  worry  and  disgust,  if  my  care- 
fully written  definitions  are  to  be  tinkered  by 
one  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  subjects  to 


Josiah  Divight  Whitney     and     William  Divight  Whitney 


The  Two  Brothers 


TO   WILLIAM    DYVIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  27, 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.W.,  — Will  you  give 
^ructions  to  B.  E.  Smith  that  my  definition 
the  word  Archaean  be  put  in  the  place  of 
:hat  in  the  C  D.  (see  galley-slip  enclosed)?  I 
have  written  it  with  care,  following  very  closely 
A.  Geikie,  and  sacrificing  myself"  inasrnucl 
I  have  admitted  that  Dana's  name  has  in  gen- 
eral use  replaced  mine.  Not  that  I  believe  at  all 
that  his  is  philosophically  correct,  since  I 
sure  that,  in  the  future,  they  will 
to  mine  (i.  e.  F  &  W.'sj.   F 
now  say,  once  fnr  all,  &«t  J 
work  on  th*.  C    U,,  ytmi  [  assiirs- 

that  my  c  ,$  will  not  be  tinken 

that  alterations  will  not  be  made  in  them  w 
out  my  consent,  and  that  all  words  of  wl 
my  definitions  form  an  importau-  part  sh 
submitted  to  me  for  approval,  before  beii 
in  type.  Only  on  these  conditions,  'wh: 
substantially  those  which  I  was  original]  v 
to  understand  would  be  those  prevailii 
the  experts,  will  I  proceed  with  the  work 
is  one  of  great  labor,  and  one  frorr 
shall  get  only  worry  and  disgust,  i 

iu4^4^8aw^  ,^- 

•me  entirely  u  :3  to 

\ 


THE  CENTURY   DICTIONARY       369 

which  they  belong.  I  must  also  add  that,  if 
things  go  on  as  they  have  gone,  I  shall  be 
obliged  in  self-defence  to  disclaim  all  responsi- 
bility for  anything  in  the  C.  D.,  and  to  publish 
a  glossary  of  words  in  my  department,  in  which 
the  Smithian  interpolated  portions  are  left  out. 
I  await  an  answer  before  proceeding  any 
farther. 

You  have  probably  not  heard  that  I  have 
been  elected  Foreign  Member  of  the  Geolo- 
gical Society  of  London,  an  honor  which  I 
share  with  three  Americans:  J.  D.  Dana,  Jas. 
Hall,  and  Newberry.  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  it 
is  chiefly  in  recognition  of  the  value  of  the 
"Azoic  System,"  which  treads  pretty  heavy 
on  some  of  the  older  geologists'  toes,  but  the 
newer  school  is  in  office  in  the  Society  now. 
Lis  sub  judice  est,  i.  e.  Judd  is  president,  and 
Murchison  and  Carpenter  defunct.  Les  absents 
ont  toujours  tort. 

P.  S.  I  would  not  wish  you  to  infer  that  I 
am  not  willing  to  receive  hints  and  informa- 
tion and  new  words,  even  if  they  be  not  to  be 
found  in  my  glossary  in  37  languages — say, 
as  has  been  the  case  in  Tartar.  But  I  will  not 
consent  to  any  words  being  admitted  on  which 
no  light  can  be  thrown,  save  that  they  are  in 
another  dictionary.  I  am  continually  trying  to 
impress  it  on  the  Smithian  mind,  that  diction- 


370        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

aries  are  no  authorities.  You  have  already  got 
some  "gimcracks"  in  the  C.  D.,  and  very  seedy 
they  look! 

This  sputter  on  the  part  of  the  editorial 
contributor,  it  is  only  fair  to  say,  is  merely  a 
bit  of  the  inevitable  friction  between  the  two 
sides  of  every  publishing  enterprise.  Whitney 
and  his  managing  editor  remained  excellent 
friends.  On  "azoic,"  however,  Whitney  was 
fairly  beaten;  for  the  era  proves  to  be  by  no 
means  lifeless.  Aside,  nevertheless,  from  mere 
names,  to  Foster  and  Whitney's  old  report  be- 
longs the  credit  of  first  recognizing  distinctly 
the  importance  of  this  formation  in  North 
America. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  July  i  (almost),  1889. 
Ther.  85°,  will  be  95°  to-morrow. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,—  .  .  .  I  think  I  shall 
stick  by  this  village  until  the  summery,  sim- 
mery  school  has  sizzled  out.  Please  give  me 
one  more  item  of  information,  viz.,  where  you 
recover  your  express  matter.  I  might  want  to 
send  a  package  of  novels  in  case  the  children 
should  cry  for  the  same. 

I  am  not  of  the  same  mind  as  you,  in  regard 
to  the  criticisms  of  Newcomb.  I  think  they 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       371 

were  just,  and  argue  that  he  had  a  good 
opinion  of  the  dictionary  in  general,  or  he 
would  not  have  condescended  to  spend  his 
time  on  it.  I  distinctly  remember  my  surprise 
at  the  definition  of  "alidade,"  and  wondered 
who  could  have  been  responsible  for  it.  A 
very  considerable  number  of  definitions  of  this 
kind  I  have  already  rewritten.  I  never  re- 
ceived any  thanks  for  this;  and  in  fact,  I 
rather  inferred  from  the  tone  of  the  letters  re- 
ceived, that  such  criticisms  were  unwelcome. 
Sometimes  I  have  said  that  such  and  such  a 
word  was  absurdly  defined,  and  offered  to  re- 
write it;  but  have  received  no  response.  Some- 
times I  have  rewritten,  and  my  word  has  (I 
suppose)  been  adopted.  I  recollect  particularly 
"horizon"  and  "artificial  horizon,"  the  former 
of  which  words  was  incorrectly  and  incom- 
pletely defined,  and  the  latter  absurdly.  I  re- 
wrote both  from  beginning  to  end,  and  sup- 
pose that  my  words  were  accepted.  Almost 
all  the  definitions  of  surveying  instruments 
have  been  bad.  When  they  were  very  bad,  I 
have  sometimes  called  attention  to  the  fact, 
sometimes  rewritten  them,  and  sometimes  (I 
guess)  let  them  go ;  partly,  because  it  was  none 
of  my  business,  and  partly,  because  (in  some 
cases,  at  least)  I  had  not  the  time  to  hunt  up 
the  information  needed. 


372        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 


TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  September  5,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  ...  I  find  some 
pretty  bad  things  .  .  .  but  not  many.  A  good 
illustration  of  the  old  proverb,  "A  little  know- 
ledge is  a  dangerous  thing,"  is  afforded  by  the 
word  "lapilli,"  which  I  have  tried  three  times 
to  have  so  printed,  but  which  they  persist  in 
making  into  "capilli."  I  tried,  also  in  vain,  to 
have  what  is  said  about  "  Bavarian  bronze " 
stricken  out,  on  the  ground  that  there  is  no 
more  any  Bavarian  bronze  than  there  is  Ber- 
lin, Parisian,  or  Chicopee  bronze.  There  is  no 
peculiar  kind  of  bronze  made  in  Bavaria.  On 
the  contrary,  there,  as  everywhere  else,  the  com- 
position of  the  bronze  varies  with  the  time  and 
the  maker. 

The  worst  thing  ...  is  the  definition  of 
"astrolabe,"  which  is  all  wrong;  and  the  fig- 
ure given  is  not  that  of  an  astrolabe,  although 
some  one  may  ignorantly  have  called  it  so.  In 
fact,  as  a  general  rule  all  through  the  C.  D., 
the  definitions  and  descriptions  of  mathemati- 
cal and  surveying  instruments  have  been  bad 
and  sometimes  ludicrously  so.  I  have  rewritten 
a  good  many  of  them,  but  it  seems  rather  hard 
to  put  this  additional  work  on  me. 

In  weights  and  measures  I  have  much  to 


THE  CENTURY   DICTIONARY       373 

find  fault  with ;  for  instance  under  "  arschin  " 
.  .  .  the  expert  evidently  has  no  idea  what 
an  "arschin"  is,  nor  that  the  Russian  and  Eng- 
lish measures  of  length  are  identical.  An  ar- 
schin is  not  a  measure  "formerly  in  use,"  and 
it  is  not  "about  28  inches,"  it  is  exactly  28 
inches.  In  fact  all  that  relates  to  weights  and 
measures  is  almost  always  bad.  What  is  to  be 
done? 

The  twenty-third  of  November,  1889,  was 
Josiah  Whitney's  seventieth  birthday,  and  his 
brother  William,  thinking  "the  anniversary  too 
important  and  interesting  to  be  passed  without 
notice,"  proposed  to  despatch  one  of  his  daugh- 
ters to  Cambridge,  "to  bear  the  congratulations 
and  good  wishes  of  this  branch  of  the  family 
to  the  head  of  the  family."  His  birthday  gift 
was  appropriately  a  copy  of  the  "Septuagint." 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  November  21,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  What  is  the  use  of 
making  such  a  fuss  because  a  fellow  has  got 

to  be  60  years  old !   Don't  let  M come  on 

Friday,  but  wait  until  Tuesday  next.  Then 
she  can  hear  a  Sarasate-D'Albert  concert  on 
Wednesday,  and  another  on  Saturday,  and  two 
symphony  concerts  into  the  bargain.  I  have 


374        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

already  given  away  my  tickets  for  this  week's 
concert,  for  I  was  thinking  of  running  down 
to  New  Haven  on  Saturday,  to  spend  a  part 
of  Sunday  with  you,  if  you  don't  object;  and 
then  you  can  congratulate  me  on  my  having 
reached  my  5oth  birthday,  if  you  think  there  is 
any  great  merit  in  that.  Besides  M—  -  must 

come  with  M and  hear  her  great  rival  on 

the  fiddle !  Answer  at  once,  by  telegraph,  if  you 
agree  to  all  this,  for  I  must  make  arrange- 
ments for  getting  the  tickets,  which  there  will 
be  a  scramble  for. 

Your  4<>year-old  brother, 

J.  D.  W. 

FROM    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

NEW  HAVEN,  November  22,  1889. 

DEAR  Jo., — We  are  much  more  than  satis- 
fied to  have  you  come  here  instead.  Bring  a 
Boston  Glee-book,  if  convenient.  Pity  that  the 
girls  can't  go  as  you  kindly  propose;  but 

M has  a  friend  coming.  .  .  .  Otherwise 

we  should  send  them,  spite  of  Th'ksg'ng. 

It  was  lucky  that  you  did  not  have  to  write 
a  longer  note,  or  by  the  end  of  it  you  would  n't 
have  been  born  yet. 

Come  as  early  as  you  can. 

Yours  ever, 

W.  D.  W. 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       375 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  November  24,  1889. 

Hall0! 

Hall0! 

What  you  sent  me  as  the  LXX  ver- 
sion of  the  Old  Testament  is,  in  fact,  the  LX- 
andrian!  PleaseNtake  off  ten  years  from  that 
account.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  had  n't  had  the 
book  ten  minutes  before  I  had  utilized  it  in 
my  dictionary  work.  (See  maltha.)  In  fact, 
strange  as  the  coincidence  may  seem,  I  was 
just  going  over  to  the  College  Library  to  get 
the  second  volume,  and  see  how  the  Greek 
stood  in  reference  to  the  cement  used  in  the 
Tower  of  Babel  (not  by  Rubinstein),  and  which 
the  authorized  version  calls  "slime."  So  you 
see  your  book  was  cold  water  to  a  thirsty  soul 
—  in  spite  of  the  attempted  and  easily  detected 
falsification  of  the  age  of  the  donee.  .  .  . 
Yours  with  a 

Nathan  Birdseye  view 

into  futurity, 

J.  D.  W. 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  21,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  .  .  .  What  do  you 
say?  Shall  I  come  down  .  .  .  and  spend 
Wednesday  evening  with  you  .  .  .  ?  I  could 


376        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

not  inflict  myself  on  you  for  longer  than  until 
Thursday  morning. 

If  you  don't  answer  this,  I  shall  conclude  that 
you  don't  want  any  more  Whitneys  around  — 
have  got  enough  of  'em  of  your  own.  If  you 
telegraph  on  Monday  morning  ...  why  then 
all  right.  I  will  come  unless  influenz'd  to  the 
contrary.  .  .  . 

H called  my  attention  to  a  review  of 

the  C.  D.  in  the  ...  "  Atlantic."  The  first 
thing  I  noticed  was  that  I  had  misspelled  the 
name  of  Skeats  all  the  way  through  "  Names 
and  Places."  I  sent  .  .  .  down  town  at  once 
for  a  carriage,  and  rushed  upstairs  to  pack  up, 
ready  to  be  taken  to  the  idiot  asylum.  Just 
after  finishing  the  job,  and  while  waiting  for  the 
carriage,  I  went  to  the  closet  and  took  out 
Skeats's  book,  intending  to  kick  it  in  revenge 
for  the  woe  it  had  brought  upon  me.  When  (Lo 
and  Behold !)  his  name  was  Skeat  after  all !  Now 
don't  you  think  a  man  who  all  through  a  critical 
review  of  a  Dixonary  misspells  the  name  of  the 
author  he  quotes  most,  ought  to  be  hung  ? 

TO   WILLIAM   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  December  28,  1889. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  .  .  .  Have  they 
written  a  decent  definition  of  "  Atwood's  Ma- 
chine"? I  called  attention  to  the  fact  that,  as 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY      377 

set  in  the  galley  proof,  it  was  simply  awful,  and 
it  did  not  come  changed  in  the  page  proof. 
Look  sharp  after  that  word.  I  have  also  sent 
messages  to  various  great  bolt  and  screw  manu- 
facturers, to  find  out  exactly  what  a  "machine 
bolt "  and  a  "  machine  screw "  is.  Answers 
have  come,  but  not  satisfactory  —  more  are 
expected.  I  have  n't  yet  found  any  bolt  manu- 
facturer who  knows  what  a  "  lewis-bolt "  is. 
Your  satellite, 

J.  D.  W. 

With  this,  ends  the  episode  of  the  Century 
Dictionary,  much,  it  is  said,  to  the  relief  of 
President  Eliot,  who  begrudged  eight  years' 
distraction  from  Whitney's  scientific  work. 

TO   WILLIAM    DWIGHT    WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  February  9,  1892. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W., —  .  .  .  There  is  a  re- 
cess or  absence  of  lectures  just  now,  on  ac- 
count of  the  mid-year  examinations ;  but  I 
think  it  would  be  prudent  for  me  to  refrain 
from  leaving  home  at  present,  while  we  are 
likely  to  have  very  sudden  changes  of  the 
weather;  because  I  am  trying  to  get  over  an 
attack  of  the  grippe,  and  riding  on  the  cars  in 
very  cold  weather  is  trying  to  me,  chiefly  be- 
cause they  keep  them  so  hot.  If  you  please,  I 


378        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

will  save  your  invitation  for  later,  when  the 
snow  and  the  grippe  shall  have  gone  off 
together. 

I  have  already  reported  on  your  Max-Mul- 
lertary1  opus — or  opuscule,  —  if  that  designa- 
tion seems  to  you  more  suitable. 

Yours  as  ever, 

J.  D.  W. 

1  That  is:  What  Smax  of  War.2    Almost  a 
"  Thirty  Years'  War,"  I  should  say,  by  this  time. 

2  To  this  you  may  remark,  and,  with  propri- 
ety, that  you  have  heard  of  "sloops  of  war" 
but  never  of  "  smacks  of  war  " ! 

And  you  have  not  forgotten,  I  hope,  that  in 
the  unrevised  Century,  a  severe  kiss,  or  one  of 
hostile  character,  was  said  to  be  always  "  ac- 
companied by  a  smack."  Whereupon  the  un- 
regenerate  commentator  added,  "smacktions 
speak  louder  than  words." 

TO    WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  10,  1892. 

MY  DEAR  W.  D.  W.,  —  I  am  much  obliged 
to  you  for  your  kind  invitation  to  come  down 
and  cool  off  at  your  hospitable  place  of  sum- 
mer abode.  Nothing  would  be  more  agreeable, 
but  it  does  not  seem  possible  just  at  this  pre- 
sent time.  ...  I  will  try  to  make  .  .  .  plans 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY      379 

for  our  future  movements  and  submit  them  to 
you  .  .  .  for  your  approval. 

For  some  reason  or  other  -  -  perhaps  be- 
cause I  have  taken  up  the  subject  of  Climatic 
Changes  again  for  investigation  —  the  weather 
has  been  playing  us  scurvy  tricks  this  sum- 
mer. To  be  up  in  the  nineties  is  the  regular 
thing  nowadays.  It  is  all  right  when  you  have  a 
place  of  your  own  by  the  seaside — in  the  surf 
as  it  were  —  where  you  can  stay  all  the  time. 
But  to  run  away  for  a  few  days,  and  sponge  on 
your  relatives,  instead  of  sponging  yourself  at 
home,  while  bankrupt  of  brains  and  going  into 
perpetual  liquidation  of  body,  does  not  seem 
to  do  much  good.  The  weather  is  sure  to  take 
advantage  of  your  absence,  and  there  will  be  a 
drop  of  the  mercury  of  30°  or  so  — as  there  was 
after  the  last  hot  spell,  when  the  clerk  of  the 
weather  was  resting  merely  to  take  a  fresh  hold 
again;  and  that  is  just  the  time  you  select  for 
your  coastal,  cooling-off  convalescence !  .  .  . 

Do  you  remember  when  we  were  camped  on 
a  branch  of  the  Ontonagon,  near  "  Cushman's 
Location,"  how  it  was  so  hot  that  we  went  and 
sat  in  a  shady  pool  of  the  river  —  not  by  it, 
but  in  it ;  and  how  the  thermometer  dropped 
40°  that  afternoon  in  one  hour !  These  are  the 
kind  of  memories  that  haunt  my  soul  at  the 
present  time. 


38o        JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY 


FROM    F.    VON    RICHTHOFEN 

BERLIN,  August  8,  1895. 

MY  DEAR  PROFESSOR,  —  An  age  has  passed 
since  our  last  correspondence.  I  heard  of  you 
occasionally  .  .  .  and  you  have  put  me  under 
obligations  by  sending  me  your  masterly  book 
on  the  United  States,  and  the  Supplement  to 
it.  It  gave  me  pleasure  to  infer  therefrom  that 
you  are  well  up  and  busy  at  work  as  it  has 
always  been  your  custom. 

You  had  formerly  the  pleasant  custom  to 
come  over  to  Europe  occasionally  and  to  pay 
a  visit  to  Berlin.  I  was  in  hopes  that  you 
would  do  so  again  at  the  occasion  of  some 
geological  or  geographical  congress,  but  since 
that  woeful  day — now  about  thirteen  years 
ago  —  which  bereft  you  of  all  that  was  most 
endeared  to  you,  our  continent  appears  to 
have  lost  its  charm  for  you,  and  I  must  be  pre- 
pared not  to  see  you  again.  If,  however,  you 
should  at  any  time  allow  your  traveling  spirits 
to  revive,  I  hope  to  get  news  from  you  and 
the  extent  of  your  plans  long  before,  that  I 
may  arrange  to  meet  you.  I  should  be  so  de- 
lighted, that  I  would  make  up  my  own  plans 
accordingly.  I  never  forget  what  you  have 
been  to  me  in  California,  and  I  recall  with  par- 
ticular pleasure  our  joint  trip  to  Lassen's  Peak. 


THE  CENTURY  DICTIONARY      381 

This  is  long  ago;  we  have  grown  in  age 
both  of  us,  and  many  events  have  happened  in 
the  lives  of  each  of  us.  I  suppose  you  are  busy 
at  work  in  your  exquisite  library  —  which  cer- 
tainly has  not  ceased  to  increase — following 
up  with  unabated  zeal  all  events  in  political 
and  scientific  life.  And  to  these  the  "  tempora 
mutantur"  is  no  less  sure  than  the  "et  nos 
mutamur  in  illis  "  applies  to  us.  New  problems 
have  arisen  politically,  socially,  and  in  the 
whole  realm  of  science.  I  have  admired  your 
faculty  to  follow  these  changes,  and  your  book 
on  the  United  States  fully  proves  that  the 
universal  character  of  your  interests  is  un- 
abated. .  .  . 

My  wife  sends  you  her  kind  regards.  I  am 
glad  you  made  her  acquaintance  in  Bonn,  but 
I  ever  regret  that  I  was  then  absent.  That  was 
your  last  visit.  I  hardly  think  that  we  shall 
ever  come  to  your  country,  our  vacations  being 
too-  short ;  and  I  missed  the  only  good  oppor- 
tunity, which  was  given  by  the  Geological 
Congress. 

I  remain  in  ever  grateful  memory, 
Yours  very  sincerely, 

F.  VON  RlCHTHOFEN. 

Here  we  too  may  well  take  leave  of  Pro- 
fessor Whitney,  busy  in  his  exquisite  library, 


382        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

following  with  unabated  zeal  the  best  that  was 
being  thought  and  done  in  the  world.  Thirty- 
one  years  he  taught  at  Harvard,  and  died  at 
Lake  Sunapee,  New  Hampshire,  August  19, 
1896,  in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age. 
"Although  he  suffered  great  afflictions  during 
his  residence  in  Cambridge,"  wrote  the  great 
President  under  whom  he  served,  "  I  cannot 
but  hope  that  he  also  had  great  satisfactions 
and  much  happiness." 

Fortunate  on  the  whole  in  his  life,  he  was 
fortunate  also  in  his  death.  He  survived  but 
two  years  his  beloved  brother;  and  he  kept 
at  his  work  almost  to  the  end.  In  spite  of 
some  apparent  feebleness  of  body  during  the 
last  winter  of  his  life,  he  finished  his  year's 
teaching:  at  no  time  was  he  confined  to  his 
bed.  Thus  was  he  spared  the  sad  infirmities 
of  old  age;  and  he  died,  of  sclerosis  of  the 
cerebral  arteries,  without  pain  and  without 
fear. 

He  is  buried  at  Northampton  beside  his 
wife  and  daughter.  His  gravestone,  emblem- 
atic alike  of  his  early  work  and  of  the  interest 
of  his  later  years,  is  a  glacial  boulder  of  rose 
quartzite  of  the  geologic  age  of  the  lead  dis- 
trict about  Galena  and  the  rocks  of  Upper 
Michigan  which  border  the  "  Azoic  System." 

There  are  two  kinds  of  scientific  men,  The 


THE   BOULDER 
JOSIAH   DWIGHT   WHITNEY,  1819-1896 


THE   CENTURY   DICTIONARY       383 

one,  like  Agassiz,  Liebig,  Jackson,  through 
their  personal  qualities  or  their  gifts  of  ex- 
pression or  their  connection  with  some  con- 
spicuous discovery,  achieve  a  popular  reputa- 
tion, not  indeed  beyond  their  desert,  but  in 
some  degree  commensurate  with  it.  The  other 
sort,  Hall,  Henry,  Wolcott  Gibbs,  careless  of 
the  amateur  and  the  undergraduate,  influence 
profoundly  the  opinions  of  their  highly  trained 
associates,  and  remain  without  honor  save  in 
their  own  country.  To  few  is  it  given  to  choose 
to  which  group  they  shall  belong. 

Whitney,  though  he  belongs  on  the  whole 
to  the  second  group,  has  certain  affiliations 
with  the  first.  The  Calaveras  skull  was  a 
famous  matter  in  its  day;  his  magazine  articles 
gave  him  a  popular  audience,  which  he  might 
easily  have  increased,  for  no  reader  of  the  fore- 
going letters  or  of  the  Yosemite  guidebook 
can  question  his  command  over  his  mother 
tongue.  He  had  an  interesting  mind,  and  he 
lived  through  one  of  the  great  periods  of  his 
science.  He  might  have  written  a  successful 
text-book,  for  he  had  much  of  Dana's  learning 
and  all  of  Le  Conte's  skill,  while  in  actual  field 
experience  he  surpassed  them  both  together. 

More  or  less  deliberately,  he  chose  the 
narrow  way.  He  filled  a  long  lifetime  with 
sound  professional  work:  his  monument  is 


384        JOSIAH   DWIGHT  WHITNEY 

the  unrivaled  collection  of  books  which  he 
gave  Harvard  University,  his  reports  on  the 
natural  resources  of  six  states,  a  topographical 
method  which  will  in  time  map  the  whole  of 
North  America,  and  two  generations  of  pro- 
fessional geologists  and  topographers  whom 
he  trained. 

No  other  time  than  our  own  has  produced 
the  type  of  men  with  whom  Whitney  belongs, 
the  highly  trained  specialists,  men  of  science 
and  engineers,  who  go  about  their  daily  tasks, 
knowing  that  their  work  shall  abide,  built  into 
the  fabric  of  our  civilization.  When  all  is  said, 
it  is  upon  men  like  these  that  our  civilization 
rests. 


TITLES,  APPOINTMENTS,  AND  MEMBERSHIPS 

IN   LEARNED   SOCIETIES   OF  JOSIAH 

DWIGHT   WHITNEY 

Assistant  Geologist,  New  Hampshire  State  Geological 
Survey.  1840. 

Boston  Society  of  Natural  History;  Resident  Member. 
1841. 

United  States  Geologist  for  the  Lake  Superior  District. 
1849. 

American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences;  Honorary 
Member.  1850. 

Albany  Institute ;  Corresponding  Member.   1851. 

Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia;  Corre- 
sponding Member.  1852. 

State  Chemist  of  Iowa.  1855. 

Societe    geologique    de    France;     Honorary    Member. 

1855- 

Chicago  Academy  of  Sciences;  Corresponding  Mem- 
ber. 1859. 

State  Geologist  of  California.     1860. 

California  Academy  of  Sciences;  Resident  Member. 
1861. 

Philalethic  Literary  Society  of  Santa  Clara;  Honorary 
Member.  1863. 

American  Philosophical  Society ;  Life  Member.  1863. 

National  Academy  of  Sciences;  Life  Member.  1863. 

Harvard  University;  Sturgis-Hooper  Professor  of  Geo- 
logy. 1865. 

Essex  Institute ;  Corresponding  Member.  1866. 

Societas  Naturae  Scrutatorum  Helvetorum ;  Honorary 
Member.  1866. 

Yale  University;  Honorary  LL.  D.  1870. 


386      TITLES,  APPOINTMENTS,  ETC. 

Mercantile    Library    Association    of    San     Francisco; 

Honorary  Life  Member.  1871. 
Royal    Geographical     Society    of    London;    Honorary 

Corresponding  Member.  1872. 
Geological  Society  of  London;  Life  Member.  1873. 
Royal    Scientific    Society   of    Batavia;     Corresponding 

Member.  1873. 
Societe   royale  des  sciences  de   Liege;   Corresponding 

Member.  1873. 
Gesellschaft  fur  Erdkunde  zu  Berlin  ;  Honorary  Member. 

1874. 
Sociedade   de   Geographia   de    Lisboa;    Corresponding 

Member.  1877. 
Geological  Society  of  London;  Foreign  Member.  1887. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I 

BOOKS    AND   ARTICLES    WRITTEN,    EDITED,  OR   TRANS- 
LATED   BY   J.    D.    WHITNEY 

Berzelius,  Jons  Jacob.  The  use  of  the  blowpipe  in 
chemistry  and  mineralogy.  Translated  from  the  fourth 
enlarged  edition,  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  Boston.  Ticknor  & 
Co.  1845.  Plates. 

Description  and  analyses  of  three  minerals  from  Lake 
Superior.  Bost.  Jour.  Nat.  Hist.  5  :  486.  1847. 

Chemische  Untersuchung  einiger  Silicate,  die  Kohlen- 
saure,  Chlor  und  Schwefelsaure  enthalten.  Annalen  der 
Physik  und  Chemie  (Poggendorff),  70  (146):  431.  1847. 

Analyse  des  Rothzinkerzes  aus  Sterling  in  New-Jersey. 
Annalen  der  Physik  und  Chemie  (Poggendorff),  71  (147) : 
169.  1847. 

Report  on  the  mineral  lands  of  Lake  Superior.  [Re- 
ports by  Locke,  Channing,  McNair,  and  Whitney.]  U.  S. 
3oth  Congress,  ist  session.  Senate.  Ex.  Docs.  vol.  2,  no. 
2  :  175.  Washington.  1848. 

Jacksonite,  a  new  mineral  from  the  Lake  Superior  re- 
gion. Proc.  Bost.  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.  3:5.  1848. 

Chlorastrolite  from  Isle  Royale,  Lake  Superior.  Proc. 
Bost.  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.  3  :  12.  1848. 

On  the  composition  of  Chloritoid  and  Masonite.  Proc. 
Bost.  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.  3  :  100.  1849. 

The  Lake  Superior  copper  and  iron  district.  Proc. 
Bost.  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.  3  :  210.  1849. 

Rain-drop   and    air-bubble   impressions.    By    Edward 


388  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Desor  and  J.  D.  Whitney.  Proc.  Bost.  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.  3  : 
200  ;  4  :  131.  1849,  1851 ;  also  in  Proc.  Am.  Assoc.  Adv. 
Sci.  5  :  74.  1851. 

Mineral  lands  of  Lake  Superior.  [Reports  by  Foster 
and  Whitney.]  U.  S.  3Oth  Congress.  2d  session.  Senate. 
Ex.  Docs.  vol.  2,  no.  2  :  153.  Washington.  1849. 

Report  on  the  geological  and  mineralogical  survey  of 
the  mineral  lands  of  the  U.  S.  in  Michigan.  6  maps. 
[Reports  by  Jackson,  Foster,  Whitney,  etc.]  U.  S.  3ist 
Congress,  ist  session.  Senate.  Ex.  Docs.  vol.  3,  no.  i,  pt. 
3  :  371.  Washington.  1849. 

Synopsis  of  the  explorations  of  the  geological  corps  in 
the  Lake  Superior  land  district,  under  the  direction  of 
J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney.  4  maps.  U.  S.  3ist  Con- 
gress, ist  session.  Senate.  Ex.  Doc.  no.  i,  part  3  :  605. 
Washington.  1849. 

Chemical  examination  of  some  American  minerals. 
Bost.  Jour.  Nat.  Hist.  6  :  36.  1850. 

Examination  of  three  new  mineralogical  species  pro- 
posed by  C.  U.  Shepard.  Bost.  Jour.  Nat.  Hist.  6  :  42. 
1850. 

Lettre  de  J.  W.  Foster  et  J.  D.  Whitney  sur  les  terrains 
siluriens  du  lac  Superieur.  Bull.  Soc.  geol.  de  France. 
SeV.  2,  t.  8  :  89.  1850. 

Report  on  the  geology  and  topography  of  a  portion  of 
the  Lake  Superior  land  district,  in  the  State  of  Michigan. 
By  J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney.  Washington.  1850, 
1851.  2  v.  Plates.  Maps. 

Contents.  —  i.  The  copper  lands.  2.  The  iron  region 
together  with  the  general  geology. 

On  the  Azoic  system  as  developed  in  the  Lake  Supe- 
rior land  district.  By  J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney.  [Ab- 
stract only.]  Proc.  Am.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.  5  :  4.  1851. 

On  the  age  of  the  sandstone  of  Lake  Superior  with  a 
description  of  the  phenomena  of  the  association  of  igne- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  389 

ous  rocks.  By  J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney.  Proc.  Am. 
Ass.  Adv.  Sci.  5:  22.  1851. 

On  the  different  systems  of  elevation  which  have  given 
configuration  to  North  America,  with  an  attempt  to  iden- 
tify them  with  those  of  Europe.  By  J.  W.  Foster  and 
J.  D.  Whitney.  Proc.  Am.  Ass.  Adv.  Sci.  5  :  136.  1851. 

[Report  on  the  iron  district  of  Lake  Superior.  By  Fos- 
ter and  Whitney.]  U.  S.  3ist  Congress.  2d  session.  Sen- 
ate. Ex.  Docs.  vol.  2,  no.  2  :  147.  Washington.  1851. 

[Review  of  J.  D.  Dana's]  The  United  States  exploring 
expedition:  Geology.  North  Amer.  Rev.  74:  301.  Apr. 
1852. 

[Review  of  P.  T.  Tyson's]  Geology  and  industrial  re- 
sources of  California.  North  Amer.  Rev.  75  :  277.  Oc- 
tober, 1852. 

Report  on  the  mineral  tract  of  the  Cherokee  Copper 
Mining  Company,  also  of  the  East  Tennessee  tract, 
known  as  the  Beaver  property,  situated  in  Polk  County, 
East  Tennessee.  New  York.  1853.  Plan.  Diagrams. 

St.  Louis  and  Birmingham  Iron  Mining  Co.  Charter 
and  by-laws,  together  with  reports  on  an  examination  of 
the  estate.  N.  Y.  1853. 

Contains   geological  reports  by  Dr.  H.  King  and 
J.  D.  Whitney ;  analyses  of  ores  by  C.  T.  Jackson. 

Testimony  [in  regard  to  C.  T.  Jackson  and  the  ether 
controversy,  including  three  letters  written  by  Mr.  Jack- 
son. Washington.  1853], 

The  metallic  wealth  of  the  United  States,  described 
and  compared  with  that  of  other  countries.  Philadelphia. 
1854. 

Extracts  from  the  Report  on  the  geology  of  the  Lake 
Superior  Land  District  (Part  II)  by  J.  W.  Foster  and  J. 
D.  Whitney.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  17  (67):  n.  May, 
1854. 

On  the  chemical  composition  of  the  minerals  Algerite 


390  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

and  Apatite.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  17  (67):  206.  May, 
1854- 

Remarks  on  some  points  connected  with  the  geology 
of  the  north  shore  of  Lake  Superior.  Proc.  Am.  Assoc. 
Adv.  Sci.  9  :  204.  1855. 

Report  of  an  examination  of  the  Bristol  Copper  Mine, 
in  Bristol,  Conn.,  August,  1855.  [With  Charter  of  the 
Bristol  Mining  Company.]  By  Benjamin  Silliman,  Jr., 
and  J.  D.  Whitney.  New  Haven.  1855.  Illus. 

On  the  occurrence  of  the  ores  of  iron  in  the  Azoic 
system.  Proc:  Am.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.  9  :  209.  1855. 

Review  of  Murchison's  Siluria.   Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser. 

i9  (69):  37i-  May,  1855. 

Catalogue  of  the  rocks,  minerals,  etc.,  collected  on  the 
district  between  Portage  and  Montreal  River,  during  the 
years  1847  and  1848,  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  Smithsonian  In- 
stitution. Annual  report  for  1854  :  387.  Washington.  1855. 

Remarks  on  the  Huronian  and  Laurentian  systems  of 
the  Canada  Geological  Survey.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser. 

23  (73)  :  305-  May,  l857; 

Report  on  the  Geological  Survey  of  the  State  of  Iowa ; 
embracing  the  results  of  investigations  made  during  por- 
tions of  the  years  1855,  I^5^,  and  1857.  By  James  Hall, 
State  Geologist ;  J.  D.  Whitney,  chemist  and  mineralogist. 
Vol.  i,  part  1,2.  Published  by  authority  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. 1858.  2  v. 

Contents.  —  Part  i.  Geology.   Part  2.  Palaeontology. 

Notice  of  new  localities,  and  interesting  varieties  of 
minerals,  in  the  Lake  Superior  region  :  supplementary  to 
the  chapter  on  this  subject,  in  Part  II  of  the  Report  of 
Foster  and  Whitney.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  28  (78)  :  8. 
Nov.  1859. 

On  the  chemical  composition  of  Pectolite.  Am.  Jour. 
Sci.  2d  ser.  29  (79)  :  205.  May,  1860. 

The  Geological  Survey  of  California.  An  address  be- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  391 

fore  the  Legislature  of  California,  at  Sacramento,  March 
1 2th,  1 86 1.  Appended,  a  copy  of  the  Act  authorizing  the 
Survey.  San  Francisco.  1861. 

Report  on  the  Geological  Survey  of  the  State  of  Wis- 
consin. Vol.  i.  [By]  James  Hall  and  J.  D.  Whitney. 
Printed  by  authority  of  the  Legislature  of  Wisconsin. 
1862.  10  plates.  2  maps. 

Contents.  —  Physical  geography  and  general  geo- 
logy, by  James  Hall.  Report  on  the  lead  region, 
on  Upper  Mississippi,  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  Catalogue 
of  palaeozoic  fossils,  by  James  Hall.  The  second  vol- 
ume was  prepared  but  never  published. 

Report  of  a  geological  survey  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
lead  region.  Albany.  1862. 

Letter  relative  to  the  progress  of  the  State  Geological 
Survey.  San  Francisco.  1862. 

Lecture  on  geology,  delivered  before  the  Legislature  of 
California,  at  San  Francisco,  Feb.  27,  1862.  San  Fran- 
cisco. 1862. 

Annual  report  of  the  State  Geologist  of  California 
[J.  D.  Whitney]  for  the  year  1862-63.  Sacramento.  1862, 
1863. 

Which  is  the  highest  mountain  in  the  United  States, 
and  which  in  North  America  ?  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci. 
2  (1858-62)  :  219  ;  3  (1863-67)  :  325. 

Lecture  on  geology,  delivered  before  the  Legislature 
of  California,  March  19,  1863.  Sacramento.  1863. 

On  the  height  of  Mt.  Shasta,  California.  Am.  Jour. 
Sci.  2d  ser.  36  (86)  :  123.  Nov.  1863. 

On  the  inaccuracy  of  the  Eighth  Census,  so  far  as  it  re- 
lates to  the  metallic  and  mineral  statistics  of  the  United 
States.  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67):  6. 

[Account  of  a  collection  of  Japanese  minerals  and  fos- 
sils owned  by  J.  H.  Van  Reed.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat. 
Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  15. 


392  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[Communication  in  regard  to  the  progress  of  the  State 
Geological  Survey  of  California.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat. 
Sci.  3  (1863-67) :  23. 

[Communication  of  letter  from  G.  J.  Brush  regarding 
his  analysis  of  meteoric  iron  from  Tucson,  and  remarks 
thereon.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  30. 

[Remarks  on  meteoric  iron  from  Arizona.]  Proc.  Cal. 
Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  48. 

[Remarks  on  the  nature  and  distribution  of  meteorites 
which  have  been  discovered  on  the  Pacific  Coast  and  in 
Mexico.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  240. 

[Abstract  of  results  obtained  by  M.  Remond  in  his 
geological  explorations  of  Northern  Mexico,  1863-65.] 
Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  243. 

[Remarks  on  the  geology  of  the  State  of  Nevada.]  Proc. 
Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67) :  266. 

[Remarks  on  the  absence  of  the  Northern  Drift  forma- 
tion from  the  western  coast  of  North  America.]  Proc. 
Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67):  271. 

Notice  of  a  human  skull,  recently  taken  from  a  shaft 
near  Angel's,  Calaveras  County.  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat. 
Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  277. 

Notice  of  the  occurrence  of  a  tungstate  of  lime  and 
copper  in  Lower  California.  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3 
(1863-67):  287. 

Notice  of  the  occurrence  of  the  Silurian  Series  in  Ne- 
vada. Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  307. 

On  the  fresh  water  infusorial  deposits  of  the  Pacific 
coast,  and  their  connection  with  the  volcanic  rocks.  Proc. 
Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  319. 

[Remarks  on  the  mineral  species  occurring  in  Califor- 
nia and  on  the  Pacific  coast.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci. 
3  (1863-67)  :  372,  374. 

[On  the  depression  of  Death  Valley.]  Proc.  Cal.  Acad. 
Nat.  Sci.  3  (1863-67)  :  376. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  393 

Report  relative  to  establishing  a  State  University,  made 
in  accordance  with  a  concurrent  resolution  passed  at  the 
1 4th  session  of  the  Legislature.  [By  J.  D.  Whitney  and 
others.]  Sacramento.  1864. 

Extract  from  communication  to  the  California  Academy, 
exhibiting  what  has  already  been  accomplished  [regarding 
maps  proposed  in  connection  with  the  Geological  Survey 
of  California].  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  37  (87)  :  82. 
May,  1864. 

Brief  report  on  the  progress  of  the  Geological  Survey 
to  his  Excellency  Leland  Stanford,  Governor  of  the  State, 
dated  Nov.  26,  1861.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  37  (87) : 
427.  May,  1864. 

Progress  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  California.  Am. 
Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  38  (88)  :  256.  Sept.,  1864. 

Note  supplementary  to  the  above  on  p.  298  of  the  same 
issue. 

Letter  relative  to  the  progress  of  the  State  Geological 
Survey  during  the  years  1864-65.  San  Francisco  [etc.]. 
1865. 

Notice  of  the  explorations  of  the  Geological  Survey  of 
California,  in  the  Sierra  Nevada,  during  the  summer  of 
1864.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  39  (89)  :  10.  May,  1865. 

Geology,  vol.  i,  2  [and]  appendix.  Cambridge.  1865, 
1882.  2  v.  Illus. 

Vol.  i  was  published  by  the  California  Geological 
Survey.  The  remainder  of  this  work  was  published 
privately  by  Professor  Whitney,  "  uniform  with  the 
publications  of  the  Survey." 

On  borax  in  California.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  2d  ser.  41  (91): 
255.  March,  1866. 

Geology  of  the  lead  region  of  Northwestern  Illinois.  2 
maps.  Illinois  Geological  Survey.  Vol.  i,  pp.  153-207. 
Springfield,  1866. 

Extrait  d'une  lettre  de  M.  J.  W.  [sic]  Whitney,  a  M. 


394  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Desor  [sur  les  amas  detritiques  de  la  California].  Bull. 
Soc.  geol.  de  France.  Ser.  2,  t.  24  :  624.   1867. 

Letter  relative  to  the  progress  of  the  State  Geological 
Survey  during  the  years  1866-67.  Sacramento.  1867. 

An  address  on  the  propriety  of  continuing  the  State 
Geological  Survey  of  California,  delivered  before  the 
Legislature  at  Sacramento,  Jan.  3oth,  1868.  Appended  : 
two  letters  to  the  Governor  relative  to  the  progress  of  the 
Geological  Survey,  communicated  to  the  Legislatures  of 
1865-6  and  1867-8  ;  also,  the  Report  of  the  Commis- 
sioners to  manage  the  Yosemite  Valley  and  the  Mariposa 
big  tree  grove,  for  the  years  1867-8.  San  Francisco. 
1868. 

Cave  in  Calaveras  County,  California.  Smithsonian  In- 
stitution. Annual  report  for  1867  :  406.  Washington.  1868. 

Notice  of  explorations  in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Proc. 
Cal.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.  4  (1868-72) :  90. 

Report  on  the  condition  of  the  Geological  Survey  of 
California.  Sacramento.  1869. 

Ueber  die  in  Californien  und  an  der  Westkiiste  Ameri- 
kas  iiberhaupt  vorkommenden  Mineralien  und  Grund- 
stoffe.  Uebersetzt  von  Herrn  F.  v.  Richthofen.  Zeit- 
schrift  der  deutschen  geologischen  Gesellschaft,  21 :  741. 
1869. 

Ornithology.  Vol.  i :  Land  birds.  Edited  by  S.  F.  Baird, 
from  the  manuscript  and  notes  of  J.  G.  Cooper.  [Cam- 
bridge.] 1870.  [California  Geological  Survey.] 

Issued  under  Whitney's  supervision  as  State  Geo- 
logist. 

Letter  relative  to  the  progress  of  the  Geological  Survey 
during  the  years  1870-71.  Sacramento.  1871. 

Earthquakes,  volcanoes  and  mountain-building.  Cam- 
bridge. 1871. 

A   reprint  of  the  following  articles:   Earthquakes. 
North  Am.  Rev.  108  :  578.  1869  ;  Volcanoes.  Same. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  395 

109:  231.  1869 ;  Volcanoes  and  mountain-building. 
Same.  113  :  235.   1871. 

[Review  of]  United  States  Geological  Exploration  of 
the  fortieth  parallel.  By  Clarence  King.  Mining  industry 
by  James  D.  Hague ;  with  geological  contributions  by 
Clarence  King.  North  Amer.  Rev.  113  :  203.  July,  1871. 

Die  californischen  Bacillarien-Gebirge.  Monatsbericht 
der  K.  preuss.  Akad.  Wiss.  Berlin.  1872  :  124. 

State  Geological  Survey.  Overland  Monthly,  8  :  79.  Jan., 
1872. 

Note  on  the  occurrence  of  the  "  primordial  fauna"  in 
Nevada.  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  3d  ser.  3  (103)  :  84.  Feb.  1872. 

The  Owen's  Valley  earthquake.  Overland  Month.  9  : 
130,  266.  Aug.,  Sept.,  1872. 

Abstract  in  Am.  Jour.  Sci.  3d  ser.  4  (104)  :  316. 

Statement  of  the  progress  of  the  State  Geological  Sur- 
vey of  California  during  the  years  1872-73.  Sacramento, 

1873- 

Note  on  the  occurrence  of  the  Trias  in  British  Columbia. 
Am.  Jour.  Sci.  3d  ser.  5  (105)  :  473.  June,  1873. 

Contributions  to  barometric  hypsometry  :  with  tables  for 
use  in  California.  [Cambridge.]  1874.  [California  Geo- 
logical Survey.] 

Pp.  89-112  form  a  Supplement  added  in  1878. 
Physical  features  of  the  United  States.  Walker's  Sta- 
tistical atlas  of  the  United  States.  Pp.  1-4.  N.  Y.  1874. 
California.  Boston.  1875. 

Written  for  the  gth  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica.  Ten  copies  only  were  printed  to  secure  copy- 
right in  the  United  States. 

Geographical  and  geological  surveys.  Cambridge.  1875. 
Reprinted  from  the  North  Amer.  Rev.,  121:37,  270.  July, 
Oct.,  1875. 

Are  we  drying  up  ?  Cambridge.  1876.  Reprinted  from 
the  Am.  Naturalist,  10  :  513.  Sept.,  1876. 


396  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Plain,  prairie  and  forest.  Cambridge,  1876.  Reprinted 
from  the  Am.  Naturalist,  10:577,656.  Oct.,  Nov.,  1876. 

The  Chinese  loess  puzzle.  Am.  Naturalist,  n  :  705. 
Dec.,  1877. 

Report  to  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  University  of 
California.  Biennial  report  of  the  Regents  for  1877-79  :  82. 
Sacramento.  1879. 

The  Auriferous  gravels  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  of  Califor- 
nia. Cambridge.  1880.  Plates.  Maps.  [Harvard  College. 
Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology.  Contributions  to  Amer- 
ican Geology.  Vol.  i.] 

Also  forms  vol.  6,  no.  i,  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Mu- 
seum. 

Notes  on  the  geology  of  the  iron  and  copper  districts  of 
Lake  Superior.  By  M.  E.  Wadsworth.  Cambridge.  1880. 
[Harvard  College.  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology. 
Bulletin.  Vol.  7,  no.  i.] 

The  California  Geological  Survey.  Harvard  Register,  3  : 
202.  Apr.,  1881. 

List  of  American  authors  in  geology  and  palaeontology. 
Cambridge.  1882.  [Harvard  College  Library.  Biblio- 
graphical contributions,  15.] 

Republished  from  the  Bulletin  of  Harvard  University, 
vol.  2. 

The  climatic  changes  of  later  geological  times  :  a  dis- 
cussion based  on  observations  made  in  the  Cordilleras  of 
North  America.  Cambridge.  1882.  [Harvard  College. 
Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology.  Contributions  to  Amer- 
ican geology.  Vol.  2.] 

Also  forms  vol.  7,  no.  2,  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Mu- 
seum. 

The  earth's  treeless  regions.  Brown,  Robert,  editor. 
Science  for  all.  [Vol.  5  :]  124.  London.  [1882.] 

The  Azoic  system  and  its  proposed  subdivisions.  By 
J.  D.  Whitney  and  M.  E.  Wadsworth.  Cambridge.  1884. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  397 

[Harvard  College.    Museum  of  Comparative    Zoology. 
Bulletin.  Vol.  7.] 

The  water  birds  of  North  America.  By  S.  F.  Baird,  T. 
M.  Brewer  and  R.  Ridgway.  Vol.  i,  2.  [Edited  by  J.  D. 
Whitney.]  Issued  in  continuation  of  the  Geological  Sur- 
vey of  California.  Boston.  1884.  [Harvard  College.  Mu- 
seum of  Comparative  Zoology.  Memoirs.  Vol.  12,  13.] 

Names  and  places.    Studies  in  geographical  and  topo- 
graphical nomenclature.  Cambridge.  1888. 
100  copies  printed. 

The  United  States :  facts  and  figures  illustrating  the 
physical  geography  of  the  country,  and  its  material  re- 
sources. [With  Supplement:  Population,  immigration, 
irrigation.]  Boston.  1889,  94. 

Written  for,  and  published  in  part  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica,  gth  edition. 

The  Yosemite  book  :  a  description  of  the  Yosemite  Val- 
ley and  the  adjacent  region  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  of 
the  big  trees  of  California.  Published  by  authority  of  the 
Legislature.  New  York.  1868.  Maps.  Photographs.  [Cal- 
ifornia Geological  Survey.] 

The  Yosemite  guide-book.  [Cambridge.]  1869.  2  maps. 

Same.  1871. 

Same.    [With  new  maps.]    1872. 

Same.  New  edition  .  .  .  corrected.  1874.  4  maps. 
These  are  smaller  and  less  finely  illustrated  editions  of 
the  Yosemite  book. 

II 

MAPS 

*  Geological  map  of  the  Lake  Superior  land  districts  in 
the  State  of  Michigan.    By  J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whit- 

*  Maps  so  marked  accompany  Part  2  of  the  Report  on  the  geology 
...  of  the  Lake  Superior  land  district. 


398  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ney,  U.  S.  geologists.  N.  Y.  [1847?]  Scale,  iiyV  miles  to 
i  inch. 

*  Geological  map  of  the  district  between  Ke  ween  aw 
Bay  and  Chocolate  River,  Lake  Superior,  Michigan.  J.  W. 
Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney,  U.  S.  geologists.   [N.  Y.  ?  1847  ?] 
Scale,  2/5  miles  to  i  inch. 

*  Section  and  diagram  illustrating  the  geology  of  the 
region  between  the  northern  shores  of  Lakes  Superior  and 
Michigan. 

No  name  of  authors  on  the  map,  but  certainly  by  Fos- 
ter and  Whitney. 

t  Geological  map  of  Isle  Royale,  Lake  Superior,  Mich- 
igan. By  J.  W.  Foster  &  J.  D.  Whitney,  U.  S.  geologists  : 
assisted  by  S.  W.  Hill  and  W.  Schlatter.  New  York. 
Ackerman.  1847.  Scale,  2  miles  to  i  inch. 

t  Geological  map  of  Keweenaw  Point,  Lake  Superior, 
Michigan.  By  J.  W.  Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney,  U.  S.  geo- 
logists :  S.  W.  Hill  and  W.  Schlatter,  assistants.  Phila- 
delphia. Duval.  [1850  ?]  Scale,  2.7  miles  to  i  inch. 

t  Geological  map  of  the  district  between  Portage  Lake 
and  Montreal  River,  Lake  Superior,  Michigan.  J.  W. 
Foster  and  J.  D.  Whitney,  U.  S.  geologists :  S.  W.  Hill  and 
W.  Schlatter,  assistants.  Philadelphia,  Duval.  [1847?] 
Scale,  2.7  miles  to  i  inch. 

Geological  map  of  Keweenaw  Point,  Lake  Superior, 
Michigan.  New  York,  1850.  Scale  12  miles  to  i  inch. 

Same.  1853. 

Mr.  Whitney  'Was  assisted  by  S.  W.  Hill  and  W.  S. 
Stephens. 

ft  Geological  map  of  the  lead  region  in  the  States  of 
Wisconsin,  Illinois  and  Iowa.  [Albany.  1862.]  No  scale. 

*  Maps  so  marked  accompany  Part  2  of  the  Report  on  the  geology 
...  of  the  Lake  Superior  land  district. 

t  Maps  so  marked  accompany  Part  i  of  the  Report  on  the  geology 
...  of  the  Lake  Superior  land  district. 

ft  Maps  so  marked  accompany  Report  on  the  Geological  Survey 
of  the  Upper  Mississippi  lead  region. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  399 

tt  Diagram  of  the  lead-bearing  crevices,  in  that  portion 
of  the  Upper  Mississippi  lead  region  which  lies  between 
Dubuque,  Galena  and  Shullsbury.  [Albany.  1862.]  No 
scale. 

Geological  map  of  the  northwest  corner  of  Illinois. 
[Springfield,  111.  1866.]  No  scale. 

Accompanying  Geological  Survey  of  Illinois.  Vol.  i, 
p.  154.  Springfield,  1866.  Called  in  the  list  of  illustra- 
tions :  Geological  map  of  the  Galena  lead  region.  Map 
contains  no  name  of  author,  no  date,  and  no  scale. 
Geological  map  of  the  eastern  half  of  the  State  of  Iowa ; 
by  legislative  authority.  [Albany.  1858.]  No  scale. 

James  Hall  and  A.  H.  Worthen  were  associated  with 
Mr.  Whitney. 

Accompanying  Report  on  the  Geological  Survey  of 
the  State  of  Iowa,  Vol.  i,  part  i. 

Map  of  the  Yosemite  Valley,  from  surveys  made  by  order 
of  the  Commissioners  to  manage  the  Yosemite  Valley  and 
Mariposa  big  tree  grove,  by  C.  F.  King  and  J.  T.  Gardner. 
1865.  [New  York.  Bien.]  Scale,  \  mile  to  i  inch. 

Map  of  a  portion  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  adjacent  to  the 
Yosemite  Valley,  from  surveys  made  by  C.  F.  Hoffmann 
and  J.  T.  Gardner.  1863-67.  [New  York.  Bien.  1868.] 
Scale,  2  miles  to  i  inch. 

Map  of  the  Yosemite  Valley,  from  surveys  made  by  the 
Geological  Survey  of  California.    San  Francisco.    1871. 
Scale,  ^  mile  to  J  incri. 
Same.  1872. 

Map  of  the  region  adjacent  to  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco. 
2d  edition,  with  local  revisions.   New  York.   Bien.  1868. 
2  sheets.  Scale,  2  miles  to  i  inch.  [California.  Geological 
Survey.] 
Same.   1873. 

tt  Maps  so  marked  accompany  Report  on  the  Geological  Survey 
of  the  Upper  Mississippi  lead  region. 


400  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Map  of  California  and  Nevada.  1873.  [California.  Ge- 
ological Survey.]  Drawn  by  F.von  Leicht  and  A.  Craven. 
Scale,  18  miles  to  i  inch. 

Same.  2d  edition.  Revised  by  Hoffmann  and  Crane,  and 
issued  by  authority  of  the  Regents  of  the  University  of 
California,  May  12,  1874. 

Same.  3d  edition.  Published  by  W.  D.  Walkup  &  Co. 
San  Francisco.  1878. 

Same.  New  edition.  1887. 

Topographical  map  of  central  California,  together  with 
a  part  of  Nevada.  C.  F.  Hoffmann,  principal  topographer. 
[New  York.]  J.  Bien  engr.  1873.  4  sheets.  Scale,  6  miles 
to  i  inch.  [California.  Geological  Survey.] 

**  Sketch  map  showing  the  distribution  of  the  volcanic 
and  gravel  formations  over  a  portion  of  Placer  and  El 
Dorado  Counties,  California.  [Cambridge.  1880.]  No  scale. 

**  Distribution  of  the  volcanic  formations  and  gravel 
near  Placerville.  [Cambridge.  1880.]  Scale,  i  mile  to  i^ 
inches. 

**  Section  and  plan  of  Spanish  Peak  gravel  deposit. 
[Cambridge.  1880.]  Scale,  160  feet  to  i  inch. 

**  Map  of  the  mining  district  adjacent  to  Forest  City. 
[Cambridge.  1880.]  Scale,  i  mile  to  i  inch. 

**  Map  to  accompany  the  description  of  a  portion  of 
the  region  drained  by  Slate,  Canon  and  Goodyear  Creeks 
in  Sierra  and  Plumas  Counties.  [Cambridge.  1880.]  Scale, 
2  miles  to  i  inch. 

**  Maps  so  marked  accompany  The  Auriferous  gravels  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  of  California. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


AGASSIZ,  Alexander,  303,  351. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  108;  explores 
Lake  Superior  region,  95 ;  suit 
against,  115-116;  his  glacial 
theory,  118;  at  meeting  of  A. 
A.  A.  S.,  167,  168;  aids  Cali- 
fornia Survey,  270;  letters 
concerning  Whitney,  186-187, 
297-298 ;  death,  286-287. 

Alaska,  248. 

American  Academy,  113,  115. 

American  Association,  Albany 
meeting,  167-169;  Montreal 
meeting,  171  ;  indorses  Whit- 
ney for  California  Geological 
Survey,  186. 

Ancestry,  Whitney's,  1-3. 

Arsenias,  Johann,  347. 

Ash  burner,  William,  190,  193, 
200,  213,  245,  256. 

"Auriferous  Gravels,"  325,  327, 
33°.  333»  335»  33$,  342,  346, 
348. 

Averill,  Chester,  190,  193,  214, 
215;  climbs  Mt.  Shasta,  226. 

"  Azoic,"  368,  370. 

Azoic  System,  171,  342-343*  346, 
362,  369. 

Bache,  A.  D.,  168,  186. 

Baird,  S.  F.,  265,  334 ;  work  on 

"  Birds,"  303. 

Baynes,  T.  S.,  letter  from,  322. 
Beaumont,  Elie  de,  39,  41,  42,  61. 
Berlin,  61,  70,  78  et  seq. 


Berzelius,  47,  73,  81 ;  Whitney's 

translation  of,  67,  76,  77. 
Big  Trees,  229,  231,  261. 
"  Birds,  Water,  of  North  Amer- 
ica," 271,  276,  277,  335,  347. 
Birdseye,  Rev.  Nathan,  352,  375. 
Birthday,  Whitney's   seventieth, 

373-375- 

Blagden,  Rev.  Dr.,  142. 

Blake,  G.  B.,  216;  Agassiz's  let- 
ter to,  297-298. 

Blake,  William  Phipps,  167, 168, 
183,  1 86,  187,  192. 

Bolander,  H.  N.,  254. 

Books,  Whitney's,  73-74,  188; 
at  Museum,  358. 

Booth,  Gov.  Newton,  282,  284, 
288,  289,  291,  292  et  seq. 

Bopp,  Franz,  74,  113,  114,  250. 

Boston,  39-40,  47  et  seq.,  49-50, 
53  et  seq.,  79,  101  et  seq.,  1 14  et 
seq.,  243  et  seq.  ;  Sunday  morn- 
ing in,  366. 

"  Botany  of  California,"  271,  325, 
329.  333.  335.  346,  348. 

Bowen,  Francis,  75,  115. 

Brewer,  W.  H.,  212,  234;  joins 
California  Survey,  190-191 ; 
season's  work  of,  200,  206; 
field  parties  under,  193,  214, 
215,  217;  climbs  Mt.  Shasta, 
226;  explores  Mt.  Dana  dis- 
trict, 229-231 ;  meets  Gardner 
and  King,  236 ;  rescues  Hoff- 
mann, 237 ;  leaves  California 


404 


INDEX 


Survey,  248;  in  Colorado,  268 
et  seq.  ;  "  Botany  of  Califor- 
nia," 271,  303  ;  supports  King 
for  United  States  Geological 
Survey,  339. 

"  Britannica,"  Whitney's  articles 
in,  322-323,  325. 

Brookline,  113  et  seq. 

Brush,  G.  J.,  186,  191 ;  work  for 
California  Geological  Survey, 
213,  220;  letters  to,  145,  219- 
223,  230-231,  233-234. 

Burke,  Dr.  M.  J.,  254. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  142. 

Calaveras  Skull,    253,   255,   336, 

383- 

California,  101,  122,  182  et  seq.; 
addresses  to  legislature  of,  201, 
263;  floods  in,  208;  Whit- 
ney's activities  in,  241-242; 
oil  in,  293-295  ;  "  Britannica  " 
article  on,  323,  325. 

California  Academy  of  Sciences, 
241,  249,  255. 

California  Geological  Survey, 
103-104,  182  et  seq.  ;  act  creat- 
ing, 184-185;  personnel,  189- 
191,  205,  214;  life  on,  192-197, 
214  et  seq.,  2^-2^0,  272;  plan 
for,  197-199;  finances  of,  185, 
204,  210-213, 2I9>  252>  254>  257, 
265,  271,  282,  283,  289,  300  et 
seq.  ;  first  year's  work  of,  204- 
207;  reports  of,  209,  218,  267, 
325>  33°>  333>  342;  second 
year's  work  of,  214  et  seq.  ;  re- 
organized, 234  et  seq.  ;  conflict 
with  legislature,  263  et  seq.,  287 
et  seq.  ;  suspended,  265-267  ; 


resumed,  269  et  seq.  ;  recogni- 
tion of,  284 ;  discontinued,  289- 
290,  291  et  seq.  ;  results  of,  304 
et  seq. ;  relation  to  United 
States  Geological  Survey,  305 
et  seq.;  introduces  photography, 
312. 

Cambridge,  123,  127  et  seq.; 
Whitneys  settle  in,  267,  270, 
272;  land  in,  276;  house  in, 
28i,  357- 

Carr,  Ezra  S.,  152,  176. 

"  Century  Dictionary,"  363-377; 
mining  terms  in,  364 ;  Whit- 
ney's part  in,  365  ;  Whitney's 
criticism  of,  368-370,  371-373, 
376;  reviews  of,  370,  376. 

Channing,  Dr.  W.  F.,  91. 

Characteristics  of  Whitney,  5,  8, 
9,  u,  14,  20,  27,  38-39,  49,  66, 
103,  105,  180,  256,  281,  292, 
300,  357.  381. 

Child,  Francis,  123,  328. 

Church,  F.  E.,  his  "  Heart  of  the 
Andes,"  178. 

"  Climatic    Changes,"    326,   344, 

346,  347>  35°»  35 i.  356>  379- 
Clover   Den,   123,   128,  131,  137, 

146,  154  ;  life  at,  138  et  seq. 
Coast  Survey,  307  et  seq. 
Coat  of  Arms,  179. 
Cogswell,  Joseph  Green,  8. 
Cologne  Cathedral,  119. 
Colorado,    explorations   in,    268 

et  seq.,  311. 

Columbia  University,  251. 
Conness,  John,  184. 
Conrad,  T.  A.,  186. 
Cooper,    J.    G.,    205,    207,    216, 

249,    254 ;     work    suspended, 


INDEX 


405 


213;    names   Lingula    Gabbii, 

239- 
Cotter,  236-237. 

Dana,  J.  D.,  116,  155,  171,  176, 

182,    186,   270,   277;    "Azoic 

System,"  362  ;  Mt.  Dana,  230 

et  seq. 

Daniels,  Edward,  152,  176. 
Dartmouth  College,  45. 
Darwinism,  299. 
Davis,  W.  M.,  321,  334. 
Dawkins,  Boyd,  317. 
Death  of  Whitney,  382. 
Desor,   Edouard,  108,   109,  no, 

114,   117,   118,   120,   155,  287  ; 

in  Europe,  314,  316;  letter  to, 

164-169. 

Downey,  Gov.  J.  G.,  184, 191, 192. 
Drawing,  u,  14,  25,  54,  60,  117, 

148. 

Dwight  family,  1-2. 
Dwight,  Clarissa,  2. 
Dwight,  John,  I. 
Dwight,  Josiah,  2. 

Eagan,  Michael,  190,  193,  215. 
Edwards,  Rev.  Jonathan,  3. 
Edwards,  Rhoda,  3. 
Eliot,   C.    W.,    276,    328,    377; 

quoted,  382. 

Emmons,  S.  F.,  305,  310,  311. 
Engelmann,  George,  335. 
Europe,  plans  for  trip  to,  54,  56 

et  seq. ;   journeys  in,  61  et  seq., 

78  et  seq.,  313    et  seq.,  340  et 

seq.,  348  et  seq. 

Field,  Stephen  J.,  184. 

Foster,  John  Wells,  114, 116,  121, 


133,  144,  1 86;  Lake  Superior 

Survey,  91,  92,  97,  100,  107. 
Foster  &  Whitney's  report,  118, 

343,  346,  368,  370. 
Foster,  J.  T.,  his  geological  chart, 

115-116. 

Fowler,  Samuel,  53,  61. 
Fremont,  Col.,  182,  193. 
French,  Stiles,  8,  12;  letter  to, 

9-1 1. 

Gabb,  W.  M.,  254,  256,  333; 
joins  California  Survey,  205 ; 
qualities  of,  214;  explores 
Sierra  Nevada,  229-231  ;  in 
Nevada,  261-262;  in  Central 
America,  324  ;  death,  334.  Z. 
Gabbii,  239. 

Gannett,  Henry,  305,  311,  321. 

Gardner,  J.  T.,  249,  254,  305; 
joins  California  Survey,  236- 
237  ;  quoted,  306-307  ;  on  For- 
tieth Parallel  Survey,  310;  on 
Hayden's  Survey,  333. 

Gay  Lussac,  64. 

Genth,  F.  A.,  172. 

Geological  Society  of  London, 
Whitney's  election  to,  369. 

Gibbs,  O.  W.,  1 1 8,  133,  186;  at 
Giessen,  80,  82  ;  on  Lake  Su- 
perior Survey,  91,  97,  100. 

Giessen,  study  at,  80  et  seq. 

Gilman,  Daniel  Coit,  317;  in 
California,  287,  288,  303. 

Goodyear,  W.  A.,  271,  279,  285, 
286,  335. 

Gould,  B.  A.,  123,  139,  142,  146, 
1 86;  Whitneys  in  house  of, 
270,  357- 

Gray,  Asa,  lets  house,  267,  270 ; 


406 


INDEX 


work  on  "  Botany  of  Califor- 
nia," 271,  348. 

Grimes,  Gov.  James  W.,  151. 

Guyot,  Arnold,  270. 

Haight,  Gov.  H.  H.,  264,  267, 
270,  290. 

Hall,  James,  126,  127,  140,  144, 
1 86;  and  Lake  Superior  Sur- 
vey, 108-112, 117  ;  suit  against, 
115-116;  his  geological  map, 
129;  and  State  Survey,  150- 
152,  159-160,  165,  176;  and  A. 
A.  A.  SM  168,  171 ;  advice  of, 

.  .89. 

Hallock,  Rev.  Moses,  6. 

Hallock,  Martha,  6,  7. 

Hamilton,  Rev.  L.,  238. 

Hare,  Dr.  Robert,  30,  31,  40, 
52. 

Hartwig,  254. 

Harvard,  51,  52,  132;  study  at, 
74  et  seq.;  School  of  Mines, 
242,  250,  251,  267  etseq.,  276, 
318 ;  duties  at,  318  et  seq.,  328, 

330,  33i»  350- 
Hastings,  S.  C.,  303. 
Hayden,   F.   V.,   301,  305,  310, 

324>  3335    and  United  States 

Geological  Survey,  336  etseq. ; 

letter  to,  337-339- 
Health,  Whitney's,  102, 143, 172, 

202,  250,  280,  340,  341. 
Henry,  Joseph,  168,  186,  270. 
Highwaymen,  262. 
Hill,  Sam  W.,  125,  134,  147. 
Hitchcock,  Edward,  186. 
Hoag,  J.  N.,  letter  to,  245-247. 
Hoffmann,  Charles  F.,  212,  214, 

229,  237,  333;  joins  California 


Survey,  205;  at  Mt.  Shasta, 
225  ;  climbs  Mt.  Lyell,  230;  to- 
pographical surveys,  232,  254, 
310  et  seq.;  photographs  near 
Mt.  Dana,  262  ;  in  oil  region, 
265 ;  in  charge  of  collections, 
267  ;  in  Colorado,  268  et  seq. ; 
field  parties  under,  271. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  Whitney  suc- 
ceeds at  Museum,  318. 

Horsford,  E.  N.,  186. 

Houghton,  Dr.  Douglass,  89. 

Housekeeping,  Whitney  man- 
ages, 358. 

Humboldt,  71 ;  Whitney  lectures 
on,  172. 

Hunt,  T.  Sterry,  343. 

Huntington,  C.  P.,  51. 

Ice  Age,  Whitney's  views  on, 
326,  360-362. 

"  Imperial "  Dictionary,  Whit- 
ney's opinion  of,  364,  365. 

Iowa,  Geological  Survey,  150  et 
seq.,  159-160,  164  et  seq. 

Iowa  State  University,  150,  153- 

154- 
Ives,  Lieut.  J.  C.,  183,  204. 

Jackson,  C.  T.,  39,  42,  52,  53, 
115;  aids  Whitney,  40,  56,  67 ; 
New  Hampshire  Geological 
Survey,  39-40,  47,  51,  54,  55; 
Lake  Superior  Survey,  77-78, 
89,  92,  106,  107,  109,  118; 
ether,  107,  129;  instructions 
of,  41,  90  ;  and  California  Sur- 
vey, 187. 

James,  Capt.  Malachi,  4. 

James,  Clarissa.     See  Whitney. 


INDEX 


407 


Joy,  Prof.  C.  A.,  172,  186;  on 
Lake  Superior  Survey,  91,  97, 
100;  at  Union,  153,  156,  164; 
remarks  of,  on  California  Geo- 
logical Survey,  188. 

Julian,  George  W.,  letter  to,  243- 
244. 

Keith,  William,  painting  of,  335. 

Kimball,  J.  P.,  176. 

King,  Clarence,  249,  254,  257, 
277,  278,  284,  305 ;  joins  Cali- 
fornia Survey,  236-237 ;  climbs 
Mt.  Tyndall,  237,  274,  275 ; 
attempts  Mt.  Whitney,  279, 
286 ;  on  Fortieth  Parallel  Sur- 
vey, 310,  333;  and  United 
States  Geological  Survey,  310, 

336-339.  342,  343- 
King,  Rev.  T.  S.,  196,  216,  217. 

Lake  Superior,  77,  122,  125,  132, 

133,  134,  146-149.  ISO- 
Lake  Superior  Geological  Sur- 
vey, 88  et  seq.,  104,  106-108, 
114;  life  on,  92-100,  108-112  ; 
objects,  88-89,  9°;  organiza- 
tion, 90-92;  reports,  117-118, 

I20-I2I. 

Lane,  G.  M.,  123,  137,  139,  142. 
Lapham,  I.  A.,  126,  141. 
Lasserv's  Butte,  231,  234,  380. 
Law,  Whitney's  study  of,  51,  52, 

55- 
Lead  Region,  122,  126-127,  T34> 

1 50,  1 52  et  seq. 
Learned     Societies,     Whitney's 

election  to,  113,  155,  242,  369. 
Leidy,  Joseph,  186. 
Lieber,  O.  M.,  187. 


Liebig,  73,  79  et  seq.,  83,  89. 
Locke,  John,  91. 
Levering,  Joseph,  186. 
Low,  Gov.,  246,  247. 
Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  38,  53,  118, 
126,  129,  248;  Mt.  Lyell,  229. 

Man,  prehistoric,  248,  272,  276, 

300,  316-317,  335. 
Maps  of  California,  199,  233,  271, 

278,  304  et  seq. ;  Bay  Map,  203, 

233»  263,  304- 
March,  O.  C.,  186. 
Marriage,  Whitney's,  145. 
Meek,  F.  B.,  186. 
"Metallic  Wealth,"  130,  135, 137, 

141,  142,  144-145.  296. 
Michigan  Geological  Survey,  172, 

'73- 

Mills,  D.  O.,  303. 

Missouri  Geological  Survey,  131. 

Mountains,  Whitney's  measure- 
ments of,  227-228 ;  discovery 
of  new,  229-232,  237-238;  of 
Oregon  and  Washington,  259 
et  seq. ;  of  Colorado,  268  et  seq. 

Mount  Desert,  origin  of  name, 
366. 

Miiller,  Prof.  Max,  278,  327,  378. 

Music,  14,  24,  25,  29,  32,  68  et 
seq.>  143;  in  California,  255; 
"Niebelungen  Ring,"  341  ;  in 
later  life,  359. 

"  Names  and  Places,"  365,  376. 
National    Academy,    242,    243 ; 

Whitneys  withdraw  from,  297. 
Nevada,  197  ;  geological  work  in, 

203-204,    221-223,     261-262; 

last  visit  to,  333. 


408 


INDEX 


Newberry,  J.  S.,  167,  183,  186;  in 
China,  314. 

Newcomb,  Simon,  reviews  "  Cen- 
tury Dictionary,"  370. 

Newcomb,  Dr.  Wesley,  217. 

New  Hampshire  Geological  Sur- 
vey, 40,  41-47,  51,  54,  59-60, 
91,301. 

New  York  City,  79,  130,  149. 

Northampton,  3,  5,  28,  39,  51,  73, 
87,  154,  177,  242  et  seq.,  355, 

357- 

Nott,  Rev.  Eliphalet,  155,  156  et 
seq.,  186;  Mrs.  Whitney's  opin- 
ion of,  161 ;  letter  from,  169- 
170. 

Oregon,  trip  to,  and  Washington, 

258-261. 
Owen,  D.  D.,  165,  167. 

Page,  Gov.  John,  40,  43,  44. 
Paine,  Prof.,  and    Whitney's   li- 

brai7'  359- 

Painting,  22,  23,  25. 

Panin,  Ivan,  330. 

Paris,  61,  64-65,  72. 

Parker,  Rev.  Theodore,  141, 155, 
287. 

Peirce,  Benjamin,  186. 

Pettee,  W.  H.,  335,  345 ;  in  Cali- 
fornia, 342-343- 

Philadelphia,  50,  51,  120  et  seq., 
144;  J.  D.  Whitney's  life  at, 

3°-39- 

Phillips  Academy,  15. 
Porter,  C.  B.,  252. 
Profession,  Whitney's  attempt  to 

choose,  10,  14,  51,  52, 54  et  seq., 

89. 


Pumpelly,  Raphael,  333;  book 
of  travels,  274-275;  in  China, 

SI* 

Pupils,  Whitney's  eminent,  321. 
Putnam,    S.    Osgood,   87,    183- 

184,  191,  2 56;  suffers  by  floods, 

210. 

Rammelsberg,  61,  71,  73. 

Religion,  34-35,  38-39,  336. 

Remond,  214,  215,  249,  257. 

Richthofen,  F.  von,  240,  267  ;  his 
survey  of  China,  240,  314,  332  ; 
in  Berlin,  313;  on  Ice  Age, 
362 ;  letters  to,  270-272,  332- 

334, 340-342,  353-3S6 ; las*  tet- 
ter from,  380-381. 

Rogers,  H.  D.,  120-121,  167,  171. 

Rose,  Heinrich,  47,  71,  73,  78, 

329- 

Round  Hill  School,  8. 
Russian,  Whitney's  study  of,  330, 

33i»  332. 

Shaler,  N.  S.,  320. 

"  Shanty,"  188. 

Shasta,  Mt.,  ascent  of,  223-227, 

230;  height  of,  227-228. 
Silliman,    Benjamin,   14,  40,  50, 

52,  186. 

Skeat  misspelled,  376. 
Smith,    Benjamin    E.,    363,  368, 

369.  37°. 

Speculators,  troubles  with,  in 
California,  244-245,  251,  256, 
265-267,  285,  293  et  seq. 

Stanford,  Leland,  204,  213,  270, 

3°3>  335- 

Stearns,  R.  E.  C.,  303. 
Storer,  F.  H.,  245. 


INDEX 


409 


Sturgis- Hooper  Professorship, 
318  et  seq. 

Todd,  Rev.  Mr.,  31,  37. 
Tompkins,    Edward,    216,    270, 

282,  290. 
Topographical      Surveying,     90, 

306  et  seq.,  339. 
Trask,    J.    B.,    182,    186,    191; 

founds    California    Academy, 

241. 
Tyrol,  61,  124,  128. 

United  States  Geological  Survey, 
Whitney's  relation  to,  305  et 
seq,;  Whitney  for  head  of,  337- 

339- 

Union  College,  153-154,  155  et 
seq.,  1 60  et  seq.,  164. 

Wackenreuder,  V.,  254,  271. 
Wadsworth,  M.  E.,  in  Michigan, 

342-343 ;  report  on  Michigan, 

345-346,  350,  362. 
Watson,  Sereno,  345,  348. 
White,  C.  A.,  363. 
White  Mountains,  trip  to,  360. 
Whitney  family,  2,  28,  30. 
Whitney,  Rev.  Aaron,  2. 
Whitney,  Abel,  2-3. 
Whitney,  Clarissa  [James],  4-5, 

23>  UO,  357- 

Whitney,  Eleanor  Goddard,  163, 
255,  280,  287,  331  ;  engage- 
ment of,  341 ;  marriage  of, 
344,  345 ;  visit  of  parents  to, 
348,  354 ;  death,  353-356 ;  Lake 
Eleanor,  239,  274. 

Whitney,  Elizabeth,  15,  17,  28, 
39,  62,  72,  75,  87;  letter  from, 


33-35;  letters  to,  15-17,  18-25, 

3i-33»  35-37,  42-47,  48-51, 
68-72,  163-^64  ;  connection 
with  California  Geological  Sur- 
vey, 183. 

Whitney,  John,  2. 

Whitney,  J.  D.,  family,  1-5,  28- 
30 ;  birth,  5 ;  boyhood,  5-27  ; 
School  at  Plainfield,  6-8; 
Round  Hill,  8 ;  New  Haven, 
8-15;  Andover,  15-17;  Yale 
College,  17-27;  study  at  Phil- 
adelphia, 30-37 ;  under  Jack- 
son, 39-55 ;  New  Hampshire 
Geological  Survey,  40-51 ;  un- 
certain as  to  profession,  51- 
59;  first  trip  abroad,  61-74; 
Cambridge  and  translation  of 
Berzelius,  74-77;  Lake  Supe- 
rior mines,  77-78  ;  second  trip 
abroad,  78-86;  assistant  on 
Lake  Superior  Survey,  88- 
106;  head  of  Lake  Superior 
Survey,  106-112;  Lake  Supe- 
rior reports,  113-121;  mining 
expert,  122-127,  I3°-I32,  T33~ 
136,  146-149;  "Metallic 
Wealth,"  144-145  ;  marriage, 
145;  Lead  District,  150-153, 
158-160,  .  164-166,  174-177; 
Union  College,  153-154,  155- 
157,  160-162;  birth  of  daugh- 
ter, 163  ;  State  Geologist  of 
California,  184-188;  organizes 
survey,  189-192;  begins  field 
work,  192 ;  second  year,  197 ; 
financial  difficulties,  208-213, 
219-220;  the  Sierra  Nevada, 
223-232,  237-238;  survey  cur- 
tailed, 235  ;  year  at  East,  242  ; 


INDEX 


survey  opposed,  244 ;  return 
to  California,  248;  Calaveras 
skull,  253;  Oregon  and  Wash- 
ington, 258-261 ;  survey  sus- 
pended, 264-266 ;  Mining 
School  at  Harvard,  267-268; 
Colorado,  268-269 ;  survey 
resumed,  269;  conflict  with 
Governor  and  others,  282,  287- 
289  ;  Europe,  313-317  ;  profes- 
sorship at  Harvard,  318 ;  "  Bri- 
tannica,"  322,  325  ;  California 
reports,  329,  330,345,  346-348, 
351;  Europe,  340-342;  the 
"  Azoic  System,"  342-344, 
362;  Europe,  348-350;  death 
of  wife  and  daughter,  352-356; 
glacial  studies,  360-362  ;  "  Cen- 
tury Dictionary,"  363-373, 376- 
377 ;  death,  382. 

Whitney,  J.  D.,  Sr.,  25,  27,  39,  47, 
51 ;  life  and  character,  2-4,  14, 
15;  and  translation  of  Berze- 
lius,  67,  72 ;  and  California 
Survey,  188,  210  et  seq.  ;  death, 
357;  quoted,  72-73;  letters 
from,  9-14,  65-67,  86-87  >  let- 
ters to,  47-48,  53-59,  159-160, 
210-213,  254. 

Whitney,  Louisa  Goddard,  146, 
147,  175,  190;  travels  in  Cali- 
fornia, etc.,  201,  202,  216,  217, 
258  et  seq.,  261 ;  observes  bar- 
ometer, 229;  health,  146,  271, 
315,  324,  327,  332,  340,  341, 
349  ;  writings,  336,  354 ;  death, 
353-3S6;  letter  of,  161-162; 
letters  to,  155-158,  223-227, 
273-275,  280-282. 

Whitney,  Sarah  [Williston],  4,  5. 


Whitney,  Sarah  Birdseye,  28,  36, 
47,  68,  87,  164. 

Whitney,  W.  D.,  16,  72, 122, 134, 
322;  relations  with  brother, 
62;  Lake  Superior  Survey,  91, 
105  ;  in  Europe,  113,  128,  342; 
at  Yale,  132;  at  Clover  Den, 
138  etseq. ;  "  Metallic  Wealth," 
138,  139,  144;  marriage,  169; 
lead  reports,  188;  LL.D.,328; 
"  Climatic  Changes,"  351-352  ; 
"Century  Dictionary,"  363  et 
seq. ;  letter  from,  374 ;  letters 
to,  62—65,  74-86,  92-106,  108- 
112,  114-116,  119-121,  124- 
136,  138-144,  146-149.  J59» 
160-161,  171-180,  192-197, 
200-204,  208-210,  214-219, 
232-233,  244-245,  247,  249- 
253»  255-267,  272-273,  276- 
279,  282-290,  313-316,  323- 
332»  334-336,  343-353.  360- 
379- 

Whitneyite,  172-173. 

Whitney  Bay,  284. 

Whitney,  Mt.,  discovered,  237- 
238 ;  confusion  concerning, 
279;  climbed,  285-286. 

Whittlesey,  Charles,  108,  109, 
no. 

Williams,  M.  B.,  41,  42,  43,  45, 

59- 

Williamson,  R.  S.,  259. 
Williston,  Samuel,  50. 
Wilson,  A.    D.,   265,   305,   310, 

333- 
Winlock,  Joseph,   123,  137,  142, 

324- 

Winnipisiogee,  Lake,  45-46. 
Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  102. 


INDEX 


411 


Wisconsin    Geological    Survey, 

1 52  et  seq.,  1 74  et  seq. 
Worthen,  Amos  H.,  153,  168. 
Wyman,  Jeffries,  letter  to,  316- 

3*7- 

Yale,   132-133;    life  at,  18-26; 


LL.D.,  272;  lecture  at  Scien- 
tific School,  318. 

Yosemite,  202,  217,  229,  231. 

Yosemite  Valley  bills,   263-264, 

317. 

Yosemite   Guidebook,  267,  277, 
310,315. 


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